TITLE: Supernatural: Coyote’s Kiss
AUTHOR: Christa Faust
PUBLISHER: Titan Books
PRICE: $7.99
RELEASED: July 12, 2011

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

This was a tough book for me to critique, for a very simple reason: I’ve never seen a single episode of Supernatural. I’m not opposed to the show at all. I’ve just never seen it. But I took it on because, for some strange reason, I’m sometimes curious to see if the author of a book like this can pull me in, even though I’ve never seen the show and have no clue who the main characters are. I think it’s an interesting test. Sometimes the author in question is able to do it, but mostly it doesn’t work out. Coyote’s Kiss falls into the latter category for the most part.

The premise of the TV show is that Sam and Dean Winchester, two brothers whose mother was killed by a demon, and are trained by their father to fight evil supernatural entities. They travel around the country doing just that. This book brings them to the Arizona/Mexico Border, as they investigate a series of brutal murders. They soon discover these deaths are the work of a Borderwalker, a creature which can travel between dimensions. The brothers are joined early on by a new female character, Xochi, who can certainly give them a run for their money in terms of fighting ability.

What I’ve read about this book, and how Faust’s writing relates to the show, indicates that she’s done a good job being faithful to the characters and their little quirks. But if that’s the case, I might be inclined to steer clear of Supernatural. Sam and Dean are basically two catalog models who make bad jokes. Xochi is sort of your typical native-to-the-area character who has all the connections, and helps point the brothers in the right direction. Faust tries to create sexual tension between Dean and Xochi, but it falls about as flat as the humor. In essence, the book read like a well-researched, fairly well written piece of fan fiction.

One thing I will give Faust credit for is her use of action. This book uses a surprising amount of gore in the action sequences, which could serve as a pro or a con depending on your tastes. Personally, I found the high intensity sequences to be a welcome break from the stale dialogue.

To me this book’s biggest flaw lays in the stale state of the interactions  between the characters. In truth, I actually dreaded having to pick it up, but forced myself to for review purposes. In the end, I’m going to cut this book a bit of slack, simply because I don’t know the universe it exists in, and I still don’t know the characters very well. But that’ll only get you so far with me. Still, I imagine Supernatural fans will enjoy the book, as that’s obviously the audience this book is going for.

RATING: 4.5/10

Cover image from zap2it.com.