The Touch of Twilight is the third book in Pettersson's "Signs of the Zodiac" series. I haven't read either of the previous books, and right from the outset that was a significant problem. The backstory given dribbles out piecemeal, and I was often confused by events and situations. Pettersson has clearly built a complex world in the previous two novels, and as a new reader dropped into the middle of it I found it all too much and was tempted many times to stop reading.

Joanne Archer is a strange mix of Light and Shadow - her father is the dark lord of Shadow, yet she works on the side of the Light. Set in Las Vegas, The Touch of Twilight has good action and a varied cast of characters, including a Doppelgänger for Joanne who is with her boyfriend, Ben. Joanne is an interesting mix of strength and vulnerability, someone whose life has turned upside down in the past year as she's discovered she is one of a group of people who have to battle the shadow side. Parts of the book that drag are interspersed with good action, and Joanne can come across as a bit of a whiner who spends far too much time on the men in her life and not enough on saving the world. Still, overall it's an interesting urban fantasy - but definitely one that rewards knowledge of the previous books in the series.