If you had supernatural abilities, would you work for the American government? What if you needed the money….badly? In the fantasy novel, Eve and the Faders by Berneta L. Haynes and Lornett B. Vestal, Eve Cooper, a powerful biracial Black woman, takes on a job with a government agency after struggling to pay her bills and take care of her mother’s posthumous financial affairs as an educator in Chicago. As she learns more about her new job and her growing supernatural abilities, she uncovers a plan that places her and people like her in harm’s way. Now on the run, Eve learns what it means to truly have power, love, and agency in one’s life.
Eve and the Faders has a complex, amazingly depicted main character in Eve Cooper. Eve is a queer woman in a Black polyamorous relationship, and I LOVED it so much. The couple (Eve, Zoe, and Gabriel) are not perfect, yet the authors explore the difficulties that can come with being in a poly relationship in a healthy way. Through Zoe and Gabriel, we experience jealousy and some insecurities regarding Eve and where she stands with the married couple. And at every turn, love and open communication conquers all of those negative emotions. Their love one another radiates off the page. Haynes and Vestal also does a wonderful job exploring Eve’s new power set throughout the entire story. The reader experiences most of her powers as she learns about them, creating even more intrigue in our main character. I wanted her to win. I wanted her to thrive. I wanted her to burn everything down.
The commentary surrounding government abuse, agency, and survival created many “YES” moments. Haynes and Vestal do not shy away from the implications of being a Black American, living under oppressive systems, and how both can impact being supernatural. The fact that the agency, SPI, was using high pay and benefits to lure folx into joining the agency to turn them into weapons was horrible… and yet, not far-fetched at all. In our reality, job security and pay are some of the reasons why so many people, especially those coming from marginalized groups, join the military—Eve only considered joining this agency because her job as a CERTIFIED EDUCATOR wasn’t enough to cover her bills. Her fight for her agency against the SPI should remind the reader that we should trust ourselves and that sharing our perceived burdens with the ones we love is okay.
I had difficulty with the story as it hit its climax and began to resolve the plot. The ending was underwhelming, considering how much investment was created in depicting Eve as a highly sought-after, supernatural being being pursued by the American government. There was a lot of villainous monologuing, to the point where I’d question if the author trusted us, the readers, with the intellectual capacity to figure out what was going on for us. As a result, the ending felt hand-fed to me rather than a discovery I could experience with the main character (which would have been much better). Couple that with the overall tone of levity in the story, and you have a very underwhelmed reader. Also, I didn’t care for the throwaway decision for Eve and Mauricio to have sex. Because it was a fade-to-black scene and there was no mention of sexual tension before or after these characters bedded one another, it felt unnecessary. Just a random stress reliever.
My investment in Eve has me very tempted to read book two. My only hesitation is the hand-holding of significant events. I want to trust the reader more because this is an adult novel. Maybe I’ll read it on a beach day this summer and report back…
Would I recommend it? YES, BUT ONLY to beginner speculative fiction readers. It’s a straightforward thriller read that injects the supernatural in a way that creates heavy investment over time.
If you want to read it, request it at your local library or buy it via the author’s website, Amazon, or Bookshop.
Book Blurb:
The first time it happened, Eve almost killed a kid. That’s when she learned the importance of secrecy—after all, it was nobody’s business that she could disappear or break most things with her bare hands. Years later, she lives an ordinary life as a high school English teacher, with a bank account as bleak as her social life and nobody aware of her special gift. As it turns out, an ordinary life sort of sucks.
When she receives a lucrative offer to join the Special Procurements Initiative, she learns of the existence of others like her—faders. Desperate for money, she accepts the offer. Everything seems to be looking up for once, that is, until an incident during training results in a mysterious murder. Now, she’s a fugitive on a quest to uncover the truth about the Initiative’s peculiar interest in faders. After spending her whole life living in secrecy, can she hide long enough to expose the Initiative and free herself…?
Thoughtful and visceral, Eve and the Faders takes readers on a journey that forces us to reckon with our own understanding of power and freedom.
You might enjoy it if you like:
✨Badass femme & queer leads
✨Suspenseful stories
✨Adult fiction
✨Action & adventure
✨Character-driven stories
If you ware interested, please consider buying Eve and The Faders by The Blerd Library Bookshop on booksop.org! Click the Icon below!
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