The D'artigo sisters are half-human, half-Faerie agents of the Otherworld Investigation Agency, sworn to protect both Earth and Otherworld from danger. Although powerful and dangerous, the three sisters' mixed blood often short-circuits them at the wrong moments. Camille is a witch whose spells are prone to backfiring badly. Delilah turns into a tabby cat in moments of stress. And Menolly's a vampire, isolated from her own kind and unsure how to deal with the attack that left her undead. When a powerful demon plots to destroy the barriers between Otherworld and Earth, unleashing demon hoardes on both worlds, the sisters must pit themselves against deadly enemies to try and save both worlds.
The premise of "Witchling" is interesting, but there's not much new here. The occasional flashes of brilliance - Corpse Talkers, fox demons, harpies - are merely side notes to the main plot, which deals with the usual faerie intrigues of sex and politics. Camille is our narrator for "Witchling." Unfortunately, she is the least interesting character in the book. The most promising character, Menolly, is given little to do except sleep and snark, which is a complete waste of a dark, potentially fascinating protagonist. Sadly, most of the characters are one-dimensional and sterotypical: there is the arrogant dragon, the gruff human, the over-sexed elf... so on and so forth. There isn't a man in the book who doesn't make a sexual advance towards Camille, which quickly grows tiresome.
There are a few nice touches, such as the baby gargoyle Camille rescues from a harpy, and the interweaving of old legends with modern settings. However, despite a complex set-up, there is no real climax to the book, no resolution of the situations we are presented with. Part of the reason for this is that Witchling is the first of a trilogy, so Galenorn is obviously setting us up for the long haul. This knowledge doesn't quite make up for the abrupt ending, but the promise of a different narrator in the second book and some expansion upon the unique aspects of the book might be enough to lure me back for "Changeling." Maybe.
