One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Realm Walker, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 189 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




In a world that's been knowingly coping and coexisting with magic and magical creatures since the Rending, half-dark fae, half-mage Juliana Norris is a Realm Walker, an officer of the International Law Enforcement Agency that polices the Altered. She is most often assigned to tracking and, when necessary, hunting those nonhuman creatures who are causing trouble with their human neighbors.

Given as she can see the signature that every being leaves as it travels along its way, sort of like a magical scent trail, and identify them by their colors, she is uniquely qualified for the job. The only creatures she can't see, that leave no signature behind in their wake, are demons. That does, however, make more than a little problematic the fact that someone has summoned one and set it on a course of death and destruction straight at Juliana.

Then there's the vampire she once loved, Thomas Kendrick. Seven years ago he took her as his mate, then disappeared from her life before the blood was even dry. Losing him nearly destroyed her. The aftermath of his leaving changed her irrevocably. Now he's returned and is of the opinion that it would be the perfect time to force his way back into her life. Because she obviously doesn't have enough to worry about.

With a demon slaughtering everything in its path and Thomas dogging her every step, Juliana is running out of time to save the city and is in serious danger of losing her heart. The vampire has already proven he is just as capable of ripping it out of her chest as the demon is, and while the demon may provide a bloodier and more deadly sort of evisceration, it may not be the most devastating in the long run.


This series debut by Collins marks the second time in a handful of months where I had to stop a few chapters into a book and make sure there wasn't a preceding book or novella, or even a main series from which this one spun, because I felt like I was missing a lot of previously laid groundwork almost from the very beginning. There's plenty of tidbits of information about things that happened in the past to set up the story, but the characters, their backstory, and significant elements of the world-building are disclosed in a way that seemed far better suited as reminders than introductions.

Julianna and Thomas have a lot of personal history, that much is plain, but I never felt like I was given a good grasp of it. Details about their past were either glossed over or doled out in drips and drabs throughout the tale and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was supposed to have already known the whole story before I started the book. Though I'm not really sure how.

That problem wasn't limited to Thomas, either. All of Julianna's friends and acquaintances suffer similarly. There are several who have obvious history with her, but without the all-important context to let me know how and why they were as valuable to her as we're told they are, I never really felt any of those connections. That put a big crimp in the emotional impact of several crucial scenes as the conflict with the Big Bad heated up, and it confused me in general when it came to characters like Raoul and Michael.

And not for nothing, but I'm still not sure how I feel about Thomas. I was completely thrown by the weird way he showed up and inserted himself into Juliana's life, offering sketchy detail on what he does and doesn't know about her origins and her life since he left and making some pretty high-handed demands with all kinds of attitude. My first impression of him was of an overbearing, utterly egotistical asshat, and while that did improve the longer I read, it didn't completely go away.

Maybe it would have if he hadn't kept referring to Juliana as "his bride." Ugh. Not only did that bug me with its repetition, it seemed pretty offensively objectifying to me. Like he didn't see her as her own person with her own identity, she was just his bride. It was weird. Not sexy. Weird.

On the other hand, it quickly becomes clear that Juliana is absolutely everything to him and he would do anything for her. I would have preferred seeing a bit more of that in application, though, and a smidge of honest communication wouldn't have been remiss, either. I'm starting to wonder if there is just no other way to breed conflict between two stubborn, self-sacrificing characters, as often as that has been the sole source of major relationship conflict in stories I've read lately. Still, his devotion to her did temper my negative opinion of the guy and kept him from being utterly unlikable, but he was definitely not to my personal taste in romantic hero types.

There were, however, some very nice things going on, too. It was nice reading an urban fantasy series debut that didn't make me want to poke the heroine with something sharp. First time that's happened in a while. And no inklings of a love triangle, either, which is virtually unheard of in the genre of late. Those were two big positives in a book with a well-conceived (if not perfectly defined) world and solid story, and that's what kept my feelings generally positive overall as I dealt with some of the less favorable elements.

I actually liked Juliana. She's not the most original character, is in fact fairly typical for the genre. In Juliana's case, thankfully, her emotional maturity seemed slightly higher than that of an average twelve year old (a welcome change), and she's more palatable than most I've read recently. She's certainly the sort of smart-mouthed, kick-ass rule breaker I seem to gravitate towards most in the genre. You know the sort: she would sacrifice herself to save anyone she considers "hers" but guards her heart and her secrets like a jealous lover and doesn't actually let anyone in very far.

It's a common malady in urban fantasy heroines, but one I've always sort of enjoyed, or at the very least, never minded.

I did enjoy the glimpses of the world I got in this book, and there were several secondary and ancillary characters with nice page presence, though Michael in particular needed a hell of a lot more explanation. There is also a solid plot conflict going on around and in addition to Juliana's personal crisis with Thomas. It lacked sufficient setup and didn't come close to answering all my questions, especially after that rather odd but revealing climax, but on the surface it provided plenty of action and certainly a high body count.

Without the sufficient framework for everything that went on in this book, though, it just wasn't quite executed well enough for me to feel completely satisfied with the story as a whole. And did anyone figure out how Juliana knows who her father is if she can't remember anything from her first twelve years? I think I missed something there.

Well...I missed something in a lot of places, but that one still niggles me.

The plot execution may have been a bit odd, and it had some pacing issues and abrupt transitions, inconsistent progression and a general lack of the sort of detail found in the more complex urban fantasy series, but it still managed to keep me entertained. With more fleshing out in some crucial areas and another fifty or so more pages this could have really built into a gripping, multi-layered, complex tale with memorable characters. It didn't quite reach that level this time, but the potential is definitely there for the series.

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance
Series: Kate Daniels, Book 5.5
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 448 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle




Andrea Nash has lived through horrors that would have killed lesser women. Her childhood was a nightmare that left her emotionally scarred, living in the human world doing everything she could to distance herself from her shapeshifter lineage. For good reason. She was a Knight of the Order of Merciful Aid, highly decorated and deadly, but the Order doesn't have any room for shifters, let alone beastkin like Andrea.

The Order found out she's a shapeshifter when a recent battle with a big nasty put her in the hospital, thus ending her career, but not before she'd already sacrificed her relationship with Raphael, beloved son of the bouda clan's alpha, and snubbed the whole shapeshifter population of Atlanta.

Hey, when your life explodes around you, it may as well be completely obliterated.

Now Andrea is just trying to get settled into a life without the Order, working with her best friend Kate at their new investigation agency. Not that work has been all that busy lately. But that sort of thing really is a mixed blessing, because when things pick up and Jim, the Pack's chief of security, calls Andrea with a problem, being bored out of her mind starts to sound pretty good in comparison.

Four shifters have been killed and Jim wants Andrea to investigate. And the victims were on a job, working for Raphael's reclamation company when they were killed.

Now Angela has to investigate the deaths of the employees of her ex. Fabulous. Because life wasn't nearly painful, complicated, or uncomfortable enough. At this point the only thing missing is some Big Bad threatening world-ending destruction.

Oh...wait...


I've been a fan of the Kate Daniels series since its inception, but because I'm weird (or dumb...your pick), I was hesitant to try Andrea's story when it came out. I bought it because I love the world and the characters, but I didn't read it...for exactly the same reason. See, spin-off books in beloved series tend not to go so well for me, and it took me a long, long time to finally work up the nerve to give Andrea's book a chance.

Of course I'm glad I did and of course I'm kicking myself for waiting so long. Of course. It's Ilona Andrews, after all.

I've always liked Andrea's character and appreciated her contributions in Kate's books, and I'm happy to say I think she acquitted herself nicely as a main character in her own. My biggest worry was that she would come off a little like Carbon Copy Kate, but that was certainly not the case. She was the gun-toting, arrow-shooting, bad-ass Andrea I know and like. Maybe a little older, darker, and more serious than the vibe I got from her in Kate's books, but still Andrea.

And man, her backstory definitely gave Kate's childhood a run for the money on level of horror and damage inflicted. Andrea's personality and life choices make so much more sense now. Andrews did a great job bringing that all together and weaving it into a compelling, sympathetic personal history of a character with whom readers were already familiar.

I have to admit, I was expecting more of a paranormal romance feel to the story than I got. Like the Kate Daniels books, this one read more like an urban fantasy with a strong thread of romance secondary to the main plot of the book. It's a more robustly traditional romance thread than that of the Kate and Curran saga, and I think it worked as it was supposed to, but it wasn't the focus of the narrative.

Andrea's investigation into the murders and the subsequent revelations about the crime, the concerned parties, and the potential for badness was a meaty, solid story that kept me engaged throughout. I don't know that it was as intrinsically intense as any of the books in Kate's series, and it lacked a bit of the personal connection that's so prevalent between Kate and her investigations/catastrophes du jour, but it was well-developed, layered, and provided a broad array of danger and life-threatening situations for Andrea and her friends.

I loved spending more time with Roman, who was introduced in Magic Slays, the book preceding this one. I'm still not completely sure how such a nice, decent-seeming guy such as Roman can be an evil Volhv and a source of darkness, but hey, the contradictions in his character make him interesting. I just like the guy.

Raphael, on the other hand, was a surprisingly big douche bag throughout a good portion of this book, and was responsible for one of my biggest sources of disappointment in the story. When he had the unmitigated gall to show up in Andrea's office with that human bimbo and was so hideous to Andrea during her interrogation, I wanted to kill him. And I was shocked Andrea didn't ever really nail him on it.

I will say the whole scene served as a nice catalyst to get Andrea to embrace her inner beast and let her fur flag fly, providing the impetuous for some much-appreciated character evolution, but the whole messed up situation was begging for a more visceral confrontation before resolution and there just wasn't anything beyond a tepid (well, seemed tepid to me) apology on Raphael's part. I wasn't nearly satisfied considering the insult he paid Andrea by doing what he did. Not. Enough. Groveling.

The other elements of their relationship evolution provided a nice level of heat and some humor to the read, but didn't quite wow me in the same way that Kate and Curran's evolving relationship has. I liked it well enough, but it never really captivated me. Personally, I was more moved by Andrea's long-awaited decision about joining the bouda clan and the scene in which she took control of her destiny in that regard. I kinda loved that.

In part because the Kate Daniels series has provided such a rich tapestry of world building, story, and character, and in part because the writing duo that is Ilona Andrews is all sorts of awesome, this book really shouldn't be missed if you're a fan of the series. It may not have been quite as fun for me as the Kate and Curran show, but it was was a solidly entertaining, fantastic visit into a world I've come to love and admire and it provided a bit of a different perspective on characters who have been around since the beginning. I liked it a lot.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Monster Haven, Book 3
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 236 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Inveterate wedding planner by day and sole Aegis in the whole of the country by night...and day...and, well, every moment in between, Zoey Donovan is feeling the strain of the growing needs of the Hidden who are showing up at her door. The influx of magical, mystical, and beastly traffic has gotten so bad that even with the help of her closet monster Maurice and several other good friends of both the human and Hidden variety she's just barely squeaking by.

With a dire message about impending doom looming on the horizon and refugees with tales of Hidden loved ones being abducted, it's quite clear that things are just going to get worse. Something is coming. Something bad. And if the pattern of the mass exodus of Hidden and reports of the missing bear out, that something is heading right for the only Aegis left who can do anything at all to stop it...if it doesn't stop her first.


I'm a huge fan of this series. I love the world and I couldn't be happier with the wide array of wildly colorful and eminently lovable characters. Zoey is quirky and fun and one of the more unique heroines I've read in urban fantasy, but it's really the secondary characters who have stolen my heart. Closet monster Maurice in particular and the rest of Zoey's crazy coterie of friends in general elevate each book and make almost every single moment of each one of them a real good time to read.

I can't say this was my favorite of the three books, though. It started a little slow for me. Despite my rabid adoration of the veritable cornucopia of Hidden misfits who find their way to Zoey's home, I felt the development and execution of the story's main plot conflict got off to a rocky and anemic start in the first half of the book. For the first time in the series, I felt my attention waning more than once, wondering when the meat of the plot was going to really get going.

Fortunately it does get going, and when it does, there are several intense, action-packed, emotional moments (one of which broke my heart) and a couple of big developments that helped broaden and deepen the series plot arc. There's some very solid and highly entertaining storytelling going on in this book, for sure. I just I felt like the story tread water for too long before all that goodness really started.

I also can't say I cared for the return of a character we met in the first book. I wouldn't call Councilwoman Alma Dickson a Big Bad, really. She wasn't the story's main antagonist in this book any more than she was in the first, but she was just as big a tertiary source of conflict in this one as she was before. That felt a little too much like double-dipping into the character pool for me to really appreciate the conflict with her here.

On a brighter note, this is the first time in the series that I didn't have issues with Riley, Zoey's main squeeze. I haven't been impressed with him in the series to date, and still can't say he thrills me as Zoey's romantic interest, but he played a larger role in this one than in either of the previous books and I didn't mind having him around at all. He just seemed to have more of a presence in this book, and I liked it. His relationship with Zoey also gets some much-needed evolution in this one and I liked that, as well. I just wish they had more chemistry.

Naquin keeps surprising me, too. Zoey's wacky life and the wonderful weirdness that comes from the Hidden lend a lighter, more humorous tone to the series than the grittier, more dystopian urban fantasy series out there. That said, in each book there have been elements that remind me that Zoey's world isn't all fun and games by any stretch. There are Bad Things that happen to and around her characters. Very Bad Things. I won't discuss any spoilery stuff here, but the Bad Thing that happens in this one hit me hard and left me reeling.

This wasn't a perfect book for me, but I think it was an important one for Zoey's continued development and the evolution of the series. The issues I had with the external conflict were a bit more serious than they were in the previous book, and I'm a little worried that neither one was quite up to the fun level of the series debut. I love this world and the characters so much that I want to love everything else, too. I hope to get another chance to try soon, because I really can't wait to spend more time with Zoey and her fabulous friends.

The Monster Haven Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy; New Adult
Series: Donovan Circus, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 297 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for review. Rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


It's been twelve years since Lucy Sullivan's parents left Donovan Circus and took her to live in the human world. Her parents are gone now, both dead before their time, and Lucy wants to return to her roots...and her own kind. Donovan Circus, one of the few places in the world that shelter and provide for gifted supernaturals like Lucy, is the only place where she can embrace what she really is: a Firestarter.

She's fitting back into the circus life well enough, making friends, even met a guy she likes. Then the first body is found. One of the circus' own has been brutally murdered. And then another. And another.

As the death toll rises and panic spreads through the circus family like fire from Lucy's fingertips, it is the newbie who is blamed for the crimes.

She came looking for her place in the world, but someone is intent on burning that world to the ground around her, and Lucy is going to need all the help she can get to keep herself - and everything that matters to her - from going up in flames.


This fun, unique story by Long isn't perfect in plot or execution, but with its X-Men-meets-Ringling-Brothers theme, fire-licking suspense, and an eclectic mix of likable, memorable characters, it is a very entertaining read. To be honest, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. It's got a very New Adult feel to it, despite Lucy being around twenty-five (if my math was correct), and I don't normally enjoy either Young Adult or New Adult fiction. This one I did.

I liked Lucy a lot, but have to admit, her character was prone to a lack of maturity and a tendency towards emotional melodrama. She rocked the martyr complex way too often for my taste. Still, I was pulled into her story from the very beginning and couldn't help but admire the world that Long created here. By the end I was fully invested and rooting wildly for Lucy and her friends.

The best part of the book, I think, was the circus itself. I absolutely love the idea of Donovan Circus and its coterie of quirky supernaturals. It just totally worked for me on every level, and it put a fresh and unique spin on a well-worn genre. The whole concept of a circus of supernaturals doing their thing for unsuspecting humans was fantastic.

The plot threads of external conflict were great too, though. The mystery surrounding the deaths of the circus workers and the growing threat to Lucy tied in nicely with the lingering mysteries about her father's choices and actions before he died, and it created a solid framework of story around Lucy's re-entry into circus life. Brimming with action and danger, rife with suspense and tragedy, this was an all-around solid read.

Not everything worked perfectly for me, though. There was a love-interest triangle that did nothing for me (though to be fair, they never do). I'm so tired of the ubiquitous love triangle in urban fantasy that even the slightest whiff of one turns me off, and there was significantly more than a whiff here, especially at the end, when I was rolling my eyes at the timing of some pretty heavy-handed relationship confrontation.

Though...I do have to say...Team Gabriel. And that's all I'm going to say on that.

There were some minor technical problems in the book. As a whole the story felt a bit overwritten to me and could have benefited from a tighter story edit to trim down the superfluous and streamline the narrative. There were also a few timeline issues in the plot. It wasn't clear in places, and in other spots there seemed to be some contradictions. And I felt the pacing in the latter half of the book suffered from an overabundance of long, dialogue-heavy scenes lacking in action.

None of those were deal breakers for me, though. I liked the story and the originality of the concept to such a large degree that the weaker elements just weren't a major factor at all. This was a fun, highly entertaining, and utterly original story with a great cast of characters I heartily enjoyed. I just hope there will be another chance to stop by the Donovan Circus soon, because Lucy and her friends (and Long) put on one hell of a good show.

Quotable:

"It takes more than having a gift to be gifted. Otherwise you're just a person who lights shit on fire using jazz hands."

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Colbana Files, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 255 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Monster Haven, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 236 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


You'd think finding out you're an empath and monsters are real, then dispatching a deadly incubus and saving the lives of countless women would have granted wedding planner extraordinaire Zoey Donovan at least a small reprieve from the crazy, but no. No such luck for the intrepid helper of the Hidden. Between delivering sea monster babies and doling out love advice to closet monsters, keeping half her life a secret from her best friend, and pining for her missing sorta-boyfriend, EMT/not-so-grim reaper Riley, Zoey's life has not just taken a turn for the surreal, it's parked there and grown roots.

Now she's managed to annoy Death.

Apparently Zoey has the extreme misfortune of still being alive, despite being slated to die on two separate occasions. Death gets mighty cranky when that happens. Throws the whole cosmic balance out of alignment. Now she's got to deal with Riley's supervisor and a craptastic bit of bad mojo tripping her up at every turn. If she survives the next two weeks she'll get taken off death's To Do list, but it will out her as an Aegis to the Hidden head honchos.

If that happens she'll be snatched from her life and everything she knows and be consigned to work for the Hidden council for the rest of her life, so it's sort of a whole damned if she does, dead if she doesn't sort of situation. Which...when you consider just how Zoey's life has been going lately...isn't really all that surprising when you think of it.

Just another day in the life of Zoey Donovan and her creepy coterie.

Quotable:

Friends don't let friends get felt up by the supernatural.

It was love at first paragraph. Seriously, all it took was the first paragraph of the first book to know I would adore this series, and the kicks and giggles just keep on rolling in this second installment. I love the characters, I totally dig the author's voice, and the stories keep me entertained for hours of pure reading bliss.

Zoey is so much fun as the heroine. She's wacky, weird, and wonderfully socially challenged. With a heart as big as Texas and a penchant for trouble, she's easy to root for when her life spins out of control. Which it does. Constantly. Love it!

Even more than my appreciation for Zoey is my absolute worship of her inner circle of monsters and other non-human creatures. Maurice! Molly! Iris! It doesn't matter how much page time they get, they steal every scene. Especially Maurice. I was even more bummed than Zoey when Maurice went to visit his estranged wife for so much of the narrative. And don't even get me started on Andrew's fennec fox, Milo.

No, really, do not get me started. I'm still struggling with forgiving Naquin for that. Bad author! No cookie for you!

We get to see some new faces in this one, of course. As the title suggests, we meet a wonderfully pervy little pooka who, while not as universally appealing as Maurice, did add a good amount of chaotic amusement. And then there were the gremlins. I loved the gremlins. Bump and Glob and Bink were in what? Two scenes? They stole the book, I swear. So cute! So fun!

With this wonderful cast of characters, I have to admit, the story doesn't really need to be that spectacular to keep me entertained, which is probably a good thing, because in both books, the external plot conflicts were my least favorite parts of the books. And this one was just a bit less engaging than the last. I love the chaos of Zoey's life, but for about three quarters of this book the storyline centered around her surviving all the bad luck thrown her way.

It was fun, sometimes hilarious, it was even occasionally heartbreaking, but it wasn't exactly layered or complex. Towards the end of the book the plot starts to add some interesting elements, and there are some twists and turns I wasn't expecting as the book rolls towards conclusion, but it ended up seeming almost like an afterthought, or some heavy-handed foreshadowing of a more meaty conflict for the next book. It didn't quite fit as seamlessly into this one as I would have liked.

I have one more slightly dissatisfied confession, too. Despite my rabid fandom of romance, Riley didn't work for me as Zoey's erstwhile romantic interest in this book. We met him in the first book and I liked him just fine there, but in this one he just seemed more of a character appendage than the story contributor he was in book one. Most of the time here he pops up looking wild-eyed or acting worried for Zoey, is good for a lip lock or two, then slips beneath the surface again until the next time he is brought into a scene. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for romance man candy, but he just didn't offer me much beyond that in this story. I hope there is more done with his character in the next book.

It certainly goes without saying that I'll be slavering to get my hands on that next book. I can't wait to see how the developments in this one translate to upcoming events in the next. I can't wait for more of Zoey's wacky day-to-day life, either. That's some of the absolute best of both books!

Speaking of both books, I think new readers could probably start the series here and catch up to what's gone on with little trouble. Naquin explains previous events well enough, and she has an ease with reminding readers what went on before that I appreciated. I wouldn't recommend you do that, though. Start with the first book. Don't miss out on any of what went before. You'll thank me for it. Trust me.

More Quotables:

"Did you ever hear the song, 'Don't Fear the Reaper?'"
"Sure."
"Did you ever think that song wouldn't have been written if people didn't already fear them? Nobody's written a song called 'Don't Fear the Kittens,' have they? Of course not. Nobody's afraid of kittens. That would be stupid. Everybody in their right mind is afraid of reapers."

We talked and laughed, and for a while, I thought we were safe from anything else going wrong. Never say that. Never think it. That's usually when the screaming starts.

The Monster Haven Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Nikki and Michael, Book 1
Rating: 2 Stars
Length: 368 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Bantam Dell publisher Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Private investigator and psychic Nikki James is on a case that's hitting a little close to home. She's tracking a troubled teen for her frantic father, a teen who reminds Nikki of herself at that age, when the girl enters an abandoned house with a serious lack of curbside...or any other sort of appeal.

Nikki can feel the evil that waits within the building, calling to her client's daughter, courting her. It's like nothing Nikki has ever felt before and it makes her want to run screaming in the other direction, but that's not an option Nikki is willing to take. First of all, the girl matters too much to her to leave her to her own bad choices, but there's also another tiny problem with running away; the dark presence Nikki has felt following her as surely as she has followed the teen.

What she finds when she follows after the girl and enters that hellish building, though, will rip apart Nikki's understanding of the world and the monsters in it and introduce her to a whole other level of nightmare.

Michael Kelly was sent to Lyndhurst to save Nikki from the very beast he's hunted for almost a hundred years. Saving her life, however, and using her as bait to catch the fiend, do not have to be mutually exclusive. If he was burdened by a conscience maybe that thought would bother him. If he hated the monster she has managed to stumble upon any less, or been any less intent on ending its blighted existence, maybe he'd let it.


My favorite, and in this case, most applicable, definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That's me when it comes to books by Keri Arthur. I get tantalized by a creative premise or intriguing-sounding characters or fascinating plot ideas and I get sucked into reading them, only to be brought up short by frustrating story elements and disappointing characters. By now I should know that there are just things about how and what Arthur writes that don't appeal to my personal reading tastes and I should leave them alone, but here I am again, drawn back in.

Insanity.

In my defense, I did mostly enjoy Arthur's Ripple Creek series opener, Beneath a Rising Moon, so it's not like I don't have experience with liking her work. Too often, though, I find the sort of things that were in this book: characters who act in ways that don't make sense given what's going on around them and a plot that treads water for too long while the characters slog through a quagmire of angsty emotional dreck that doesn't seem to fit who they are and where they are in their acquaintance. Some of the choices made and actions taken by the characters are just stupid, and some story threads get far more focus than they should while other significant elements go unresolved.

It's a familiar frustration made more untenable by my very hope that this time it would all come together for me. It didn't.

It started great, though. I can't deny that. Nikki's damaged but determined character drew me in and Michael was a dark, sexy enigma who appealed. The case Nikki is working on goes bad very quickly to kick off the plot, and she's drawn into a dark, dangerous reality she didn't know existed. It was a strong, captivating opening.

Then the trouble started. There was a decided lack of explanation for who Michael is, who he works for, and why he's there to save Nikki, but Nikki accepts his oddly random presence with far fewer questions than I would have expected given her inherent trust issues and her own psychic impressions of his character. Convenient for the story's body count, however, she doesn't accept things she should accept later in the story and her stubborn ignorance ends up killing a lot of people and threatening her own life. More than once.

Not that her mistakes ever really blow back on her conscience. She's too busy grinding herself up over the mess she made and the losses she suffered in her distant past...because damage suffered years ago is what's really important when people are dying around you in the here and now as a result of something you did...or didn't do.

Stuff like that drives me batshit.

Of course, if Michael had spent five seconds explaining himself and outlining his reasons, motivations, and plans instead of just pressing Nikki - a complete stranger, really - to blindly trust him over and over and over again, many of the problems in the book could have been avoided. I guess it wouldn't have been very much of a book in that case, but there are other ways to create plot conflict without having characters act with an abject lack of intelligence, maturity, and good sense. As it was, the constant trust tug-of-war between Nikki and Michael felt repetitive and tedious by the halfway point and downright aggravating by the end.

That, along with an egregiously self-involved Nikki during a very pivotal emotional scene, killed any potential for me to have a bunch of warm feelings for the foundation of their romantic relationship.

As for Michael, who's supposed to be an expert on all things Jasper, he had an intensely annoying habit of making assurances and assumptions based on his vast experience with the guy (which, honestly, only seemed vast in years spent hunting, not in actual combative situations). Problem was, he was always wrong. Didn't stop him from the annoying habit, though.

Jasper is too young to stay awake during the day...wrong. Jasper won't attack so close to dawn...wrong. Jasper's not strong enough to take me on...wrong. And it went on and on. It didn't exactly take me long to realize that all of Michael's "Jasper won't" moments were just previews of exactly what Jasper would do next.

I would have beat my head against a wall at that point, but I figured Nikki and Michael would take care of that for me while I was finishing their story so I didn't bother.

The irony (and really sad fact) is that for all the myriad problems I had with this book, I didn't hate it. I didn't like it, nor would I say it was an okay read for me, but I didn't hate it. I actually still really like the idea of these characters and this world, and despite myself - or maybe because of that whole insanity thing - I am curious about what happens next for Nikki and Michael. The book ended with a bit of a cliffhanger in that regard, and though I hate cliffhangers, I wasn't bothered by this one. It felt necessary.

Or maybe by that point I just needed a Nikki and Michael break.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Scarlett Bernard, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 297 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Amazon.com through the Amazon Vine program. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




It's good to be home again. For about five seconds, anyway.

She's fresh off a plane and back in LA after a long trip to New York, but magic null and Old World cleaner Scarlett Bernard doesn't even make it out of the airport before LAPD Detective Jesse Cruz is dropping a new case in her lap and glaring at her like she caused it all. Dragging her out to the crime scene, questioning her as if she hadn't just gotten back in the state, the gorgeous detective definitely seems to still have an issue with Scarlett's occupation and her connection to the vampires, werewolves, and witches who comprise the Old World presence in Los Angeles.

Though that's not really a surprise, given how their single date had gone prior to her trip.

Unfortunately, Jesse is also correct about his take on the crime scene. It definitely looks like it has been cleaned, indicating at least some Old World connection. Scarlett just hasn't been back in town long enough to know what sort.

Pressed into investigating a crime she didn't commit...again...doesn't exactly thrill her, but Scarlett soon realizes she's got bigger concerns. Two witches are already dead, and two humans with an eerie connection to Scarlett's past are killed. That's more than enough carnage to let Scarlett know her formerly dead (now undead) mentor Olivia has decided three months of reprieve is long enough. She's coming for Scarlett, and leaving a trail of blood and death in her wake.

If Scarlett can't figure out what game Olivia is playing and stop it quickly, everyone she cares about could fall victim to the same batshit-crazy psychopath who killed her parents.


I liked Olson's series debut Dead Spots. By the end of that book I felt optimistic about the potential for this series and pleased with the world and the characters. Trail of Dead furthers that potential by taking several more strides in the right direction. I think it was a slightly stronger book all around, with a more personally significant external conflict for our heroine, and some of my more minor issues with the first book didn't carry over into this one.

With all her apathy, moral ambiguity, and emotional immaturity intact, Scarlett is back in LA just in time to land herself in trouble once again. There are still moments in the book when I didn't like her. She's a young twenty-three in a lot of ways, and suffers from an appalling amount of emotional immaturity too often to be consistently appealing at this point in the series, but I do still think she's a very unique heroine.

Her lack of a strong moral compass and her questionable ethics make her interesting. It never occurs to Scarlett to do the right thing just because it's the right thing, or out of some inherent sense of honor or concern for the community at large. She's just not that sort of heroine. That's more Jesse's style, and I love that contrast between their characters. Scarlett does only what she needs to do to stay alive in a deadly world and be moderately comfortable while doing so. No more, no less.

She's been living in an emotional vacuum since the death of her parents, torn apart by (misplaced) guilt and barricaded against any and all emotional vulnerability, but that's been slowly changing since Jesse came into her life. Olson is keeping the evolution of her character very slow so far, but it has seemed very organic given the situations in which Scarlett has become embroiled. Sure, sometimes it's frustrating - like when I would prefer Scarlett be a nicer, more mature person in general - but I can't fault the evolution itself.

Jesse, as he was in the first book, is a bright spot in this read and the perfect complement to Scarlett. I like him both as a character and as a man in Scarlett's life. He's the good, decent, kind, honorable sort...and sometimes I just want to gobble him up with a spoon. I'm so happy that Olson maintained the fluid shifts in points of view between Scarlett's first person narration and Jesse's third person. Olson does that exceptionally well and her transitions are flawless. The unique style also allows for more depth and definition for Jesse's character beyond his interactions with Scarlett, increasing his presence in the story. I really love it.

Eli, on the other hand, is just as much a non-entity for me in this book as he was in the first. For all the relationship angst between him and Scarlett, I just don't think his character has been around enough, or has a large enough role, to really impact my feelings about him one way or another. I found his character to be far more effective as a source of conflict and catastrophe late in this book than he's ever been as a love interest or supporting character. Which, frankly, disappoints me, because I think I'd like him - even root for him - if I just got to know him a little better.

Not that I want to perpetuate the love triangle between Scarlet and Jesse and Eli. I don't. I hate love triangles, and think they are agonizingly overused in the genre.

I loved the plot arc of the conflict with Olivia in this book, though more so in the second half, when the crises really started to go critical and puzzle pieces started to lock into place. It was a far more personal conflict for Scarlet than that of the previous book, and that added emotional impact in several tense, gripping scenes. I can't say all the pieces of the puzzle fit together for me, and I was left with a few question marks about Olivia's actions and motivations, as well as confusion about the intended end game for the other Big Bad, but overall, I found it very satisfying.

I did start to question the timeline in some of the backstory though, and I'm not entirely sure some plot points didn't contradict established history. Scarlett has been adamant about blaming herself for her parents death (I won't even get started on how I feel about that nonsense this time), and I could have sworn it was established that her guilt was what impacted her relationship with her brother since their parents' death five years ago. But Scarlett only found out Olivia killed her parents the week before Olivia "died," which was less than a year prior to the events of the first book and about a year before this one.

Because of that appearance of contradiction, as well as some other confusing timeline issues later in the story, some crucial scenes didn't track as well for me as they might have. I also had a hard time buying the purported timeline of Olivia's partnership with the other Big Bad in the story, and elements of the external conflict strained my ability to suspend disbelief during the climax and resolution because of it. I just couldn't completely believe everything we're told given Olivia's mental instability and her obsessive relationship with Scarlett.

Honestly, though, those were more minor grievances than true stumbling blocks for me. As a whole, this was a great installment for the series. I liked it even more than I did its predecessor, and would rate it four and a quarter stars if I could. I'm in love with the world and I adore Jesse. If Scarlett continues to evolve into a more consistently appealing heroine in future books, I can easily see myself falling absolutely in love with this series.

The Scarlett Bernard Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Night Runner, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 146 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


She tried retirement. It didn't agree with her.

Vampire courier Sydney Kildare survived a turf war in Alaska and retired to Hawaii, a wonderfully vampire-free state. She was enjoying island life just fine (being bored senseless) until the goons of a sucker with a grudge showed up and tried to kidnap her. That's about when she realized the danger was the most fun she'd had since she retired.

Now Sydney is in Chile with her vampire sorta-boyfriend Malcolm, who had been sent to South America to manage the holdings of master vampire Bronson in his continued absence. Sure, Sydney can't speak the language beyond a few important phrases, she's stuck with the low-money newbie routes at her new courier agency, and the car she's driving is a real POS, but the thrill being a runner is universal.

All in all, life is going pretty well for her. At least it is until vampires on her route start dying under highly disturbing circumstances and an old enemy of Malcolm's decides that the best way to piss him off is to break the little human courier he's so fond of. As she is that little human courier, that's a plan that just doesn't work for Sydney. Whether or not she'll survive long enough to lodge a formal complaint is another matter entirely.


There's just something about Sydney Kildare, and because of her, this series, that makes me smile. There is a lot of charming...and sometimes not-so-charming quirks in her character. She's an inveterate adrenaline junkie, but she's not foolhardy with her safety. She runs messages, a dangerous occupation on lots of levels, and that puts her into direct contact with vampires she mostly fears and dislikes, but she is hyper-vigilant around them. She keeps everyone she knows at a distance and looks at the world through street-wise, sometimes jaded eyes, but throws herself into a relationship with a vampire she doesn't exactly know that well.

Those sorts of quirks, when paired with an inner monologue peppered with sarcasm and attitude, make her a very appealing and interesting heroine. She's certainly not out to save the world, just survive it while making the most money possible. I have to admit, her prosaic approach to her life appeals to me.

I like the stories Summer writes surrounding her, too. This is not a warm, fuzzy world. It's dark and gritty, and while vampires may have an excellent PR firm, Sydney is under no delusions about their nature. That's probably a good thing given how often she seems to find herself in situations that show off the worst of it. Meanwhile, her relationship with Malcolm, which is really more of a subplot of the story, is fraught with the sort of growing pains one would expect from two people who not only don't know each other well, but are in very different places in their lives, despite the obvious chemistry between them.

I like Malcolm a lot. I like his relationship with Sydney, too, and I literally laughed long and loud when he cooked (or tried to) paella for her. I'm just not on real firm footing about the potential longevity of that relationship. There is a lot about them together that works, but there's also a hell of a lot of things that could explode them at any given moment, and they don't actually seem to really have a place in each others world. It makes me leery of becoming too attached to him.

I'm already attached to the series. I do wish there'd been a bit more resolution of the plot thread left dangling in Don't Bite the Messenger, but that got only a passing nod a time or two in this story. It looks like it was being set up to be addressed in the next book, so hopefully we'll see resolution some day. I still believe that reading DBtM before this one is the way to go, even if you're like me and prefer to avoid prequel novellas. In this case, it was integral in setting up the world and the relationship between Sydney and Malcolm, and shouldn't be missed if you're going to read this book.

And really, if you like urban fantasy that's just a step outside the box with a heroine who can drive like a demon and the vampire who will brave electronic equipment for her, you should read this book. I just hope like hell we'll see a "second" book in the series soon.


The Night Runner Series:

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Scarlett Bernard, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 283 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me through the Amazon Vine program at Amazon.com. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Scarlett Bernard is mostly human, but it's the very rare and not-so-human part of her that makes her valuable to the three magical factions of the Old World that calls Los Angeles home. Scarlett is a null. A magical dead zone. If a vampire or a werewolf comes within ten feet of her, the magic that makes them what they are shorts out and they become human again, and witches can't so much as mutter a spell in her vicinity.

It's a very useful gift to have when dealing with things that can kill you before you could blink.

It's also useful to the supernatural community. When one of their own does something that leaves a mess of the dead body, blood and gore, or spell-gone-wrong variety, Scarlett gets a call to go in and clean it up so humans don't become aware of all those things that go bump in the night.

Her current call is at the abrupt command of the most powerful immortal in the city, the vampire Dashiell. Three unidentified victims have been butchered in horrific fashion and left in a public park, but before Scarlett can do so much as open up a trash bag to start collecting the...pieces, LAPD detective Jesse Cruz stumbles onto the scene and gets an up close and personal glimpse of the darker side of the Old World.

As if keeping Dashiell from killing Jesse for his new-found knowledge isn't enough to deal with, Scarlett has even bigger problems. The victims were vampires, and the evidence in their grisly murders is pointing at the only person in town who could have incapacitated three of their kind at the same time: Scarlett.

Now Scarlett has less than forty-eight hours to bring the real killer to Dashiell for retribution. If she doesn't, the master of the city will execute her for the deaths of his people. Whether she proves she had no hand in their deaths or not.


Urban Fantasy used to be one of my favorite genres, but lately I've been having trouble finding new series that hold my interest. There are too many interchangeable heroines with varying degrees of personal damage and emotional retardation, too many love triangles...or quadrangles...or pentagons...etc., too many worlds that aren't unique enough or interesting enough or dangerous enough, with stories that leave me feeling ambivalent.

I keep trying, though, hoping for the series that will spark my old love for the genre.

I don't yet know if I've found that with Olson's series debut, but it wasn't a bad start and it's definitely got promise. The world is interesting, and I love the idea that LA is the Old World equivalent of Nowheresville. It's not exactly the happening place for otherwordly creatures. It's still dangerous, though, and the vampires in particular are more deadly than sexy hunks of non-breathing love.

Scarlett is also not one of those interchangeable heroines. She's less kick-ass than cover-her-own-ass. In a world where things bite and claw their way to the top, she's just a step above human, and her gift often puts her at odds with the very people for whom she works. She is also not particularly constrained by the concepts of human morality and ethics, which makes her interesting to me as a reader, even though her moral ambiguity made me uncomfortable in a couple of places.

Unfortunately, her character, while interesting, isn't always likable. She is dragging around a pretty big suitcase of emotional baggage, and the guilt she feels for her parents' death always felt grossly misplaced. She's got the exact sort of emotional retardation that most bugs me, so whenever the focus was on her damage, I started to get itchy, and it came up in the story too often for my tastes.

The plot was strong, though, with several nice twists that added danger and intrigue, and it started off with a devastating prologue that hit hard. I was also pleased with the smooth transitions in the shifting points of view in the narrative. I've rarely seen it done as seamlessly as it was here. Shifting between Scarlett's first person point of view to third person omniscient for scenes focused on Jesse was a nice way to get readers into Jesse's head and define his character without being colored by Scarlett's opinions. It made him a more three dimensional character than he might otherwise have been.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about Eli. He wasn't fleshed out enough for me to get a good read on him. Considering his history with Scarlett and how he felt about her, that was a bit of a problem for me, and it created another point of contention with her as the heroine. There wasn't a love triangle, per se, but that's more because Scarlett is too damaged to be seriously interested in any man, not because both Eli and Jesse aren't interested in her. They are, so I foresee a bunch of emotional angst between the three of them in the future. Can't say I'm looking forward to that.

I am looking forward to more in the series, despite that, though. Scarlett wasn't consistently likable, but she definitely had her moments. I loved her moral ambiguity and when she wasn't beating herself up for the past, she was sympathetic. I also love that she holds her own despite being the most fragile of creatures in a deadly world. With the twist at the end, which was a particularly nice tease for the next book, I'm looking forward to my next visit to LA, Old World style.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Night Runner, Book 0.5
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 91 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Being a courier for the technologically challenged vampire population is a balls-to-the-wall adrenaline rush that pays very well, but it doesn't come with any of those nifty bennies that safer, tamer jobs offer. Like a long life. In fact, at twenty-six, Sydney Kildare is the oldest runner in Anchorage, and she's just a few runs shy of her goal of retiring somewhere hot and sunny. And vampire-free.

Unfortunately for Sydney, one of her runs lands her smack in the middle of a vampire turf war, and as excellent as Sydney is at staying off vampire radar in normal situations, the grim fact is that they are the ultimate predators. If they focus their attention on finding you and using you, you get found and used. For whatever nefarious purposes they have.

Well, either that or you get real dead, and that would definitely put a crimp in Sydney's retirement plans.


Novellas and short-length novels are often hit-or-miss with me not so much because of what's written on the pages, but because of what isn't. Novellas such as this one, which appealed to me on a lot of levels, can still leave me feeling like I was missing something from the read. When the story is especially promising, or the characters particularly likable, as was the case here, I can often feel very frustrated by the end.

I loved Sydney, and the gritty, dangerous life she's living as a vampire runner. Her character, which is nicely rounded out with several quirks and peccadilloes to make her interesting, had enough heart and inner strength to make her an easy champion for the series. The brief but tragic glimpses into her past were especially nice. I loved Malcolm, too, though I still don't feel like I've got a complete handle on his character just yet.

The world they inhabit felt fresh and original, and the amount of world-building was excellent for novella-length fiction. For all that goodness, though, I felt several key elements of the external conflict lacked the definition and explanation necessary to make it really work for me.

The bulk of the plot conflict revolves around Sydney's significance to the vampire community in general and the master vampire Bronson in particular, but I never really felt that the importance of her job and her uniqueness in doing it had been defined well enough to allow me to accept the amount of effort spent in targeting her. Because of that, and despite how much fun her being targeted was to read, the reasons behind it fell flat, which crippled the plot for me.

I was okay with the abrupt ending and lack of resolution to a big portion of the external conflict, though, which surprised me. Maybe the fact that I had the "first" book in the series to read at the end of this "prequel novella" tempered my feelings in that regard. I will say this, though, I can't imagine, given where and how this novella concluded, that reading the "first" book in the series would be a good idea without first reading this "prequel." This story just contains too much groundwork for a world and conflict that, if not resolved in this story has to at least be given some attention in the next.

With Sydney's appeal as the heroine, and the intensely awesome burgeoning relationship between her Malcolm, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what Summers can do with it all in a full-length novel. Using this novella as a measuring stick, this series has a ton of potential to rock my Happy Reader buttons in all the right ways.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: The Asylum Tales, Book 1
Rating: 2 Stars
Length: 338 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Gage has always known that being the best tattoo artist in Low Town has its price. All magic does, and that's what his skin art is, magic. Simple spells, really. For luck, or love, or any sundry little and  not-so-little thing. Still, since he escaped the warlocks of the Ivory Tower at the cost of the use of magic, among other, equally unpleasant things, any unauthorized use is enough to sign his death warrant if he's found out.

That's why Gage is so good at living under the radar. Or he was until the night a dying young woman came into his shop and asked to have angel wings tattooed on her back.

With a tug of sympathy guiding his hand, Gage worked on the ingredients in the tattoo ink. He couldn't cure the woman. No magic tattoo could cure cancer. He may be able to extend her life a little, or improve it slightly before she died. It would be his gift to a brave girl for whom he felt an odd kinship.

Unfortunately, Gage forgot one very important thing: no good deed goes unpunished. His tattoo works in ways he couldn't possibly have imagined, and now he's got Ivory Tower thugs hunting him down like a dog and the grim reaper in a snit about what he's done. So much for living under the radar. Hell, Gage will be lucky just to live to see the dawn.


As much as I loved the idea of this story and felt the world that Drake has created for the series was dark, dangerous, and imaginative, I couldn't connect to this one like I wanted to. Most of my problem with the book lies with Gage. Between his attitude and his actions, he was fairly unpalatable to me as the hero.

He lies to every single person in his life, even those who mean the most to him, and they often pay steep prices for his perpetual bad choices. And for someone who is trying to stay away from warlocks, he sure did manage to stumble and flail around through his days like he's thumbing his nose at them at every turn. I just didn't find very much to recommend him as either a man or a warlock in the story.

The secondary characters had the potential to balance out some of my issues with Gage, but most never really got the sort of definition or depth needed to make them seem much better than two dimensional cutouts to me. Those that did get some development weren't included in the story enough to have as much impact as they could have.

That was a particular problem when it came to Trixie, who is supposed to be a love interest of Gage's. It was a relationship that never seemed natural or organic to the story or the characters. I never felt a drop of emotional or sexual chemistry between them, despite Gage's alleged two-year infatuation with her, and the relationship plot threads seemed to serve little purpose beyond adding yet another dangerous, hopeless situation to Gage's plate.

And that plate was ridiculously overburdened. The plot just kept churning out life-threatening or world-ending catastrophes one after another after another in a seemingly never-ending stream of badness, with no relief and little levity to balance the depressing weight of them all. Though the book does end on a positive note, it wasn't enough of a payoff for the chaotic and depressing journey.

There really is a difference between damaged antiheroes and self interested jerks, just as there is a difference between complex, layered plot conflict and relentless story quagmire. For me, this book tread on the wrong side of the line in both those categories and it ended up being a less than entertaining read as a result.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Colbana Files, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 257 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided by publisher Shiloh Walker, Inc. via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





It's not like Kit Colbana is happy to take a job for the alpha of the cat shifters. There are a lot easier ways to die if she were feeling that suicidal. Even though her small business is light on cases lately and she's feeling the pinch financially, she would have turned the job down flat, no matter how lucrative the proffered fee. But the job is finding a runaway kid, and Kit, part private investigator, sometime thief, preferred courier, resolute bounty hunter, and even occasional assassin, has a genuine soft spot for cases concerning kids.

She also has a true gift for finding things. It's in her half-breed blood. Kit's father may have been human but her mother had been full-blooded aneira, a race of ancient warriors versed in magic. Her blood gives Kit a unique set of skills perfectly suited for finding things like a lost cat shifter kid. And when her investigation into his disappearance reveals that there are more children missing, it also gives her the ability to stop those responsible.

Well...she hopes it will, anyway, as Kit has no intention of stopping until either she's dead, or the monster responsible for the kidnapping and murdering of children is. It's just her bad luck that her human half tends to be a lot easier to kill than any of the baddies she's going to be facing on this case. Life sucks that way.


J.C. Daniels, nom de plume of prolific author Shiloh Walker, kicks off her urban fantasy series debut with a strong, stubborn heroine with a smart mouth and a lot of confidence in her own deadly skills. The world of the Colbana Files drew me in, exciting and intriguing me from the first page, and the setting, being a Florida girl myself, had great appeal.

I liked Kit. She's maybe a bit typical for the genre, a kick-ass, sarcastic warrior woman whose mouth writes checks her oft-abused body ends up cashing, but she's amusing, especially when she's picking at Damon, and her hyper-vigilant caution around creatures who could so easily end her keeps her real. She's a troublemaker, surely, and man, she's abrasive at times. She's also deeply damaged by a torturous childhood that still haunts her and tends to rush headlong into danger, but she's also got a code of honor and is loyal to those very few people she trusts. I actually liked her very much, even when she was frustrating me.

I can't say the same for Damon, the cat shifter who practically glues himself to Kit's side while she's on the case. Well, I could, but it would be a gross understatement. I loved him. Loved. Him. He's all kinds of sly, dark danger and secretive, stalking seduction. He's the complete package and I adored every shiver-worthy second of every scene he was in.

The character dynamic between him and Kit was great, and while there was also a plot thread of romance there...eventually...I can't say it was my favorite element of the read. It was just a little odd for me. That there was a thread of romance at all, though, did appeal. Call me a big softy but I prefer at least some romance in almost everything I read.

That's not to say I'm a fan of the ubiquitous love triangle. In fact, I have little patience and less tolerance for anything even vaguely resembling a love triangle. I was a little worried about the vampire Jude at times because of that. Worried, and then surprised as the plot progressed, reached the climax of the conflict, and resolved. His presence in the book didn't evolve into what I was worried it was going to evolve into, I'm happy to say, but I was definitely affected by his character in the story. And that's all I'm able to say without risking spoilers, so I'll leave it at that.

Some elements of the read weren't as successful for me as others. The characters and story as a whole were solid, the well-drawn world full of plenty of deadly threat, but I had some issues with info dumping in the beginning and the ending felt rushed to me. And I'm still not sure I completely bought the motivation and actions of the Bad Guy in relation to the hunting. Sure, the guy was evil incarnate, but I still can't figure out why he did some of the things he did..

In truth, those issues were relatively minor and didn't take away much from my enjoyment in this read. I just liked Kit and Damon too much, and their story excited me. I've struggled with several urban fantasy series I've tried lately, but this one held its appeal throughout the tale. With a damaged but likable heroine I appreciate and a dark world full of danger at every turn, this debut gives me hope that I've found a new urban fantasy series that will provide chills and thrills for a long time to come. I look forward to being along for the ride.

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Jane True, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 359 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle





Jane True has always known she's not quite like everyone else in her hometown of Rockabill, Maine. That whole penchant for nighttime ocean swims in the dead of winter sort of clued her off on that. She never imagined, however, that her heritage was truly the stuff of legend.

When Jane is out for one of her nightly dips, she discovers a body in the water near her personal private cove. The grisly find blows Jane's world off its axis, and the investigation into the man's death will not only reveal what Jane really is, but it will thrust her into a world of myth and supernatural phenomena. It's a world as deadly as it is beautiful, and it's more a home for Jane than any Maine backwater could ever be.

Or it will be, if she can survive it.


This is one of those books in one of those series that I'd heard about again and again but never picked up for myself. It was oft recommended to me by friends and search engines alike based on my reading preferences and  history, but I delayed reading for one reason or another. Now I feel a little late to the party, but I'm glad I finally showed up.

Peeler has created a rich, vibrant world with this series debut. I loved Jane's voice, and appreciated the depth and texture of the town and its inhabitants, human and extraordinary alike. Everything was crisp and sharp and brilliantly original.

I wasn't quite as big a fan of the plot of the story. As a mostly character-driven tale, the external plot conflict got a little lost in the minutia of Jane's life and burgeoning knowledge of the world around her. As a reader, I appreciate superlative storytelling, but my preference is for a more plot-driven story. For me, the pacing got bogged down by details of everything Jane feels, thinks, wears, sees, and smells, and it made parts of the book very tedious to plod through.

The last fifteen percent, though, was spectacular, and I loved Jane and Ryu together. Though, to be completely honest, I'm sort of yearning for more Anyan. I'm not even remotely a fan of the ubiquitous love triangle in urban fantasy, and I definitely felt one was stirring here, if only by implication, but I'm already rooting for Anyan and Jane.

Or maybe I should say, I'll be rooting for them in absentia. As much as I appreciated this book and am heartily glad I finally read it, I don't know that I'll continue with the series. That's nothing at all against this book or the series, it's strictly a personal preference in my reading. For fans of character-driven urban fantasy with a quirky and adorable heroine, this is absolutely a must-read book. I just need a little more focus on plot-driven conflict.