Transgressions by Phillip Berrie

After months of trial and error, an elderly male wizard who's body has been destroyed, takes up residence inside the body of a young female half-elf.

A malevolent spirit is after the wizard, and he also feels adamant about finding what destroyed the spirit of the half-elf.  He and his assistant do all they can to solve the mystery and save the city from the malevolent spirits.

The middle of this book was great.  Once the wizard becomes a little more comfortable in his new skin and we start to know the characters a little better, we become a bit more invested.  Once we figure out the sort of world we're in, we find that it's a pretty magical and fascinating place.  The story telling is smooth and you can easily just get lost in what you're reading.

The beginning and ending felt pretty mis-jointed, however.  Dropping into a new world is usually pretty difficult.  Dropping into this world was unusually difficult.  We find ourselves facing the same confusion and displacement that our wizard is feeling, and at the same time we're trying to figure out the characters and the world.  Not only that, but it feels like we're set down in the middle of a war zone in the beginning.  I'm all for some action in the beginning to get you interested, but this was a little more than necessary and added some confusion that made it more difficult to get into the story.

As for the ending, I was pretty confused.  I understand this is the first book in a series and that more will be explained as the series continues.  You MUST read the epilogue in order to have any idea what's going on.

At the end of the story, we have a few short stories that give you  more insight into the characters.  Though I didn't read them first, it might have been helpful if I had.  Also, there's a glossary of terms in the back of the book that I wish I'd have read first as well.  I found both of these things once I'd finished the story, but I really feel like both of them would have helped with world creation and character setting and my confusion wouldn't have lasted as long.  This is also one of those rare cases where reading the blurb on the back of the book is helpful.

If you do a bit of prep work, this is actually a pretty good story.  I think now that I'm past the confusing setting stage, I would like to know more.  My favorite character has gone missing and I know that I definitely want more information there.