By Nichole Harwood
Posted September 9th 2024
“Pucci stood between his ghostly form and his crumpled dead body. She looked up at the ghost. She saw…sadness? Regret? Anger? She felt a pang of heartache. Even though he had crashed her vacation, she knew that for him to cross over and go into the light, she would need to discover what had happened, and he needed her help to remember.” - Pucci’s thoughts from Riddle of the Haunted Hoard by L.J. Aldon
This line is the line that caught my attention, in a single line Aldon separated her character from multiple other characters in the Urban Fantasy genre. Allow me to elaborate, local New Mexican author L.J. Aldon’s book Riddle of the Haunted Hoard is a fictional novel that could easily be placed in the paranormal mystery section of your favorite book store or the urban fantasy section. Filled to the brim with a variety of characters both living and dead Aldon’s story has a slow burn nature to it that builds with each chapter as we edge closer to solving the mystery alluded to in page one and twisted with the death of a young man.
Our protagonist Pucci Riddle is a freelance journalist and blogger with a talent of finding the best craft-made liquors around and is visiting the Grand Cayman Island for both a much needed vacation and to mix work with pleasure by hunting some new favorite spirits. Unfortunately for her an actual spirit crashes her vacation and she finds herself helping him hunt down someone the ghosts believes is in trouble finding his own body in the process. This is where that earlier line comes into play and where I find our protagonist separating herself from other characters like her in popular fiction. The lone individual who wants nothing but to live a normal life but is plagued by specters at every turn is a common trope in fiction; what is uncommon is Pucci’s reaction to the dead. Most protagonists with the abilities to see the dead are often the reluctant heroes in their own stories pulled into adventure by the wailing of the long dead. Many of these protagonists spot the “signs” of a ghost and train themselves to ignore them, sometimes pitying the spirits but ultimately acknowledging the spirit’s internal strife isn’t their problem. This can often come off as the protagonist treating ghosts as less than human or a burden.
Pucci Riddle from the beginning of the story solidifies herself as a unique character by doing something that is so simple and yet so rare in these types of stories: showing human compassion to another human being regardless of their status of living or dead. I waited for some line of dialogue where she either spouted her loathing of her ability or saw it as a higher calling to justify a need to play hero but neither came. Pucci isn’t a well trained ghost hunter with moves that would put Black Widow to shame nor is she the reluctant hero fighting against the call to adventure. She is just a woman who saw someone who needed help, acknowledged that no one else could or would help them and put her life on hold to do so in the name of human decency. This level of kindness clings to Pucci throughout the story and in my opinion is what makes her such a likable protagonist. We have seen the independent strong warrior woman (often a teenager or woman of barely 20) with unique gifts that set her against the forces of evil but I don’t think we commonly see a protagonist like Pucci. Where the strong warrior woman fights alone to keep her loved ones from being pulled into conflict, Pucci very early on recruits her friends to aid her in solving the mystery, acknowledging that this task is either one she can’t complete alone or shouldn’t have to. Together with the help of her friends, an old flame and the ghost Pucci embarks on a journey of mystery to solve a ghost’s murder all while focusing on her time table knowing that if she doesn’t act fast a darker force will take the young man’s spirit.
If I was to describe my favorite part of the Riddle of the Haunted Hoard it would have to be the way it defies common urban fantasy tropes by having the characters act like human beings as opposed to the fantasy of a human being. There are many elements in this story that seem to draw from common tropes: the handsome old flame who broke her heart only to defy the tropes by humanizing the characters and their relationships. The old flame isn’t a terrible human being but rather a man that was put in an awkward situation, one that our main character acknowledges as well. Packed with mystery, fantasy and a glimmer of horror the trait that stands out to this reader is that for the first time I feel something genuine not through the well-built mystery or supernatural elements but through a main character that can be defined as truly human in the midst of the inhuman.
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