Fantasia Reviews Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia

Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia by Elle Boca
Genre – Urban Fantasy
Published 2/1/2016
Ages 14+

About the book – A Delightful Coming-of-age Tale

“Sworn to protect the secrets of their race, marshals are trained to police Weeia hiding among humans. After completing her advanced marshal training, Danni is blown away by her new plum assignment to Paris. But, all is not well in the City of Lights; the offices are a shambles, her boss is apathetic, and her predecessors died under mysterious circumstances; it’s almost like somebody doesn’t want the law there. Despite that she risks her life in the seedy underworld of gypsies and tramps to search for a missing Weeia man.” – Publisher’s Blurb

The Review – On the Nose though Well Written

Where to start? We liked the flavor of fantasy that Miss Boca has offered in this book. We thought the gifts that the weeia possessed were interesting, and we loved how she addressed the relationship between humans and weeia. While not the most imaginative world, Miss Boca does her best to tie what she has created to the real world and what we find is a believable world. It is both internally consistent and doesn’t conflict much with what we believe we know about our own world.

As such, Miss Boca does an excellent job of pulling the reader in and helping them with the critical suspense of disbelief. Some books expect the reader to come in clueless, while Miss Boca provides a more subtle technique by cluing the reader into information that is necessary for the story, and then allowing the world to unfold before the reader after that. We particularly enjoyed this, as we never had any of the head-scratching moments that drive us so mad.

But Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia is just written so well!

In the end, what makes or breaks any story is the writing. Miss Boca is a talented writer. Her use of exposition is a bit heavy-handed early on, though that is just to introduce the reader to the vivid world that she had worked so hard to create. The dialogue is robust; it doesn’t seem forced or inappropriate. The descriptions are beautiful, as one would hope with a setting like Paris, and nothing distracts us from the most essential element: the story. The story was a bit of a hybrid fantasy/mystery fare as one would expect a story about a paranormal law-enforcement officer would be. There are some twists and turns, however, creating an adventure that was both original and interesting.

The Rating – B+

Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia is a good read. Fleshed out characters and a developed story are its fortes. Miss Boca’s style creates a solid pacing, though it can feel long-winded early on due to the exposition. We wouldn’t go so far as to call it an info dump. It is more of an introduction to which Danni is treating the reader. Still, it creates a bit of a slow pace early on. The pace does pick up and then keeps up once she makes it to Paris. Overall, we loved Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia and look forward to reading more of Miss Boca’s work in the years to come.

Do you want to read Gypsies, Tramps and Weeia? You can find it here.