Traveller by Abigail Drake

Sometimes 'a change is as good as a rest', or so the saying goes, and, having read a lot of fairly heavy books recently I definitely needed something a little different. 'Traveller' by Abigail Drake suited this purpose nicely with its quirky heroine, bad boy love interest and monsters roaming the night.

Emerson Shaw is a former Kentucky beauty queen studying in York, England, where she becomes infatuated with a certain Michael Nightingale. After following him one night, Emerson finds herself involved in much more than she bargained for - a battle that has been raging for centuries against creatures known as Moktar.

Virtually imprisoned in the Traveller compound (for her own safety, naturally!) by Michael, she struggles with the chauvinistic attitudes and restrictive rules that keep the women 'safe'. Despite discovering that she is being tracked by the creatures she still attends classes and insists on being out in the world, something that does not go down too well, despite the fact she has already successfully defeated a Moktar. Predictably things build up to a large battle.

There are a couple of good sub-plots, with Emerson searching for the family of her English mother, the mysterious Leo character and the plans of the Moktar.  Emerson is a strange mix of southern beauty queen and martial arts practitioner, while studying Shakespeare and the Art of War (Sun Tzu's study of military tactics being one of her most prized possessions). Michael is a bit too stereotypical and, unfortunately, one dimensional. The few friends involved in the plot do not progress past the point of a shoulder to cry on. 

'Traveller' is well written with good pace and a natural flow to the story.  It is an eclectic mix of the American south and a 'cup of tea will cure everything' view of England. Overall it has the feel of a young adult fantasy with a romance thrown in, though this does quite steamy so probably not for the Twilight crowd but closer to a toned down version of J. R. Ward.

Though this does suffer slightly from a few too many cliches it is still good fun and easy to read. I would recommend it to anyone feeling the need for a bout of old-fashioned escapism or fans of a good, romantic, urban fantasy.