Wicked Souls

Wicked Souls by Katie Wismer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We join Valerie right after the terrible way she was initiated into the Marionettes in the previous book. She is obviously still reeling but is also having to navigate post-Wendigo attack life and hiding her blood consumption. Killing two birds with one stone (that’s probably a terrible way to describe it) Reid takes her and Connor out to learn how to feed from humans directly. This does not go well and probably is a hint for how bad things will get before the book ends.

In this book Valerie is still trying to find “her Connor” in this new vampire form of him, but it seems like he’s gone for good. I’m happy about that one. She also find she can only consume Reid’s blood without being sick, which is a new and likely bad development to her sickness. Her mom is still terrible (as is her entire family, I think). Her friends are still awesome, and we get some more of that here. The mystery of this book, though, ends up being more around the Wendigo thing and whoever is attacking and destabilizing the ruling class of vampires. We meet oodles of new characters so I assume we are growing this universe out dramatically in future books. The ending (not the Reid bits, which were awesome) was infinitely frustrating. Valerie was definitely let down by… everyone… and that puts her in the terrible position we leave her in at the end. I’m tired of cliffhangers.

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Prince of Darkness

Prince of Darkness by Rebecca Zanetti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was a little surprised that this series has started to pair off Kurjan characters with this installment, but I should have trusted the author. These books never disappoint and this book is no exception.

Vero is the brother of the new king, which I still am not done reacting to from the previous book. He is trying to merge his world with the rest of the “realm” to various degrees of success. Lyrica is both a help and a hinderance in this respect. She is a distraction to him, as you’d expect in this type of book, but she is also leveraging her modern skill set to reach out to the Kurjan mates to make sure they are there of their own choice (mating was not exactly a fair decision to them all the time). While Vero always seems to assume the mates are there happily, Lyrica is equally wrong for assuming they all want to leave. Navigating this only brings them closer together, though, so yay!

All while this is going on, there are political machinations working against the new king, in the form of traitors, attempts on his life, and attempts at sabotaging the historic peace talks. Oh, and we get to watch Vero and Lyrica navigate an unorthodox relationship. Loved all of these things - the only frustration was Lyrica’s determination to throw herself into harm’s way at every turn. Again, expected but frustrating. We get some really great happy ending here in all ways - surprising again, but in a fantastic way. I am loving watching this world grow and evolve as we continue to watch folks pair off. I hope we get some shifter romance next!

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The Folklore of Forever

The Folklore of Forever by Sarah Hogle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book combines witches, skeptics, and small-town life into a series that I mistakenly started at book 2.

Zelda is the “weird” one in the family who does not believe in magic. She instead ran off to become a writer of a popular series but has since returned home to run a book store and do just about anything but write the promised next series. Her next door neighbor, Morgan, seems to be trying to lure her into some sort of relationship, but from a person who was definitely not into her growing up in a small town, this seems highly suspect.

This all comes out as part of his “plan” to get magical witch powers by pairing up with one of the town witches. I’ve got to admit, it took me a long time to get over his abrasive personality, but did find his banter entertaining. As a match for Zelda, who is exploring the possibility of having magic and embracing her forgotten childhood magics, he helps. Otherwise, I’d say she could do so much better. In a small town, though, I guess the choices are limited.

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Gray Court

Gray Court by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poor Rue - she’s had a rough go of it lately. Not only did she sort of break up with her “normal” friends in the previous book, but she’s dealing with the ramifications of going boom in a dark magic way and it is trickling into Colby, too. This forces their hand, and they reach out for help from the fae.

Should be easy, right? Well, turns out that saying “no” to a demon ruler only goes so far, then he decides to kidnap an ex-lover to take a bit of revenge. So, aside from living on a farm away from her home, managing a forever young “kid” with dark magic powers manifesting, being in charge of a band of demon warriors, dealing with her unresolved family issues, and managing a lovesick cousin for who is moping for the same friends she is moping for, Rue now also has to help save her mate’s mother. From his father. In another dimension.

Super easy day in the life of Rue - oh and she’s also got to keep this hush hush from her grandfather. Things, of course, do not go according to plan, but do end up in a very similar place as the previous book. Rue still doesn’t have a handle on her book-augmented powers, she still doesn’t have resolution with her daddy issues, and is being thrown into the deep end of the political pond. Decision are made, they are probably bad or maybe not but end up changing A LOT of lives in the book. I’m sure we will deal with the fallout as their would-be-coup plays out in the coming book or books.

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Gray Tidings

Gray Tidings by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These books are getting crazier and I just love them more and more with each installment. In this one? Well, they end up in New Orleans hunting a sea monster.

This book is a pivotal turning point in the inevitable clash between Rue’s “normal” life and her actual life. The excuses and lies she has been building up have been bound to break eventually, and this book is it. First, Rue ends up in New Orleans at the exact same time that the girls get an invite from their uncle to spend time together at Mardi Gras. Very suspicious, especially since the last time we saw their “uncle” he was hunting Colby then being chased off the property under penalty of death. So, yeah, it’s made especially weird because the tracking chip they put on Rue’s dad is also pinging in New Orleans.

So all of this rolls together to make for an extra weird family and friend reunion in the worst possible way. There is indeed a monster and we do get to spend more time with the warg friends we made in the previous book, but then it gets filled with oodles of baggage. Daddy issues, friend betrayal issues, monster issues, and so much more all roll together to make for an ending that appears to close the chapter on Rue’s day job and friends in town. Here’s hoping there is a path forward, but to get there we just need to trudge through some badness first.

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Gray Witch

Gray Witch by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gosh, a lot happens in this book. I’m going to include spoilers from the last book because it is important, but who starts at book 5 anyway?

This book picks up in the aftermath of the big end of book reveal. The promise to stay in contact? Well the first message arrives right as the crew has to take off for a case, shaking Rue’s life again. This is an even bigger road trip book than the last one - they bounce around A LOT and I don’t have that good a grasp on southern geography to tell you how far/how long they drove. The big case they are working on is the seeming resurrection of some famous supernatural big bads, or at least famous ones. They also happen to be assigned this case by the second in command because the director is MIA.

Just when the group gets their feet under them at one crime scene, another crops up, then another, splitting the group up so that they can at least finish chasing down leads for one of their stops. Highlights in this one? The demon making a wolf friend. And getting treated like a true person. There is big demon/demon politics happenings in this installments that likely deserves a whole paragraph but it wasn’t the good stuff. The good stuff was Rue leaning into her power and officially choosing a side in the battle that her dad is silently pursuing. I liked that this book wasn’t just the usual levels of gross, but also found time to throw in a bit of role play geekdom outside of the mystic realms stuff.

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Black Wings, Gray Skies

Black Wings, Gray Skies by Hailey Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hmmm, I think this is a turning point book in the series. If you’re reading along with me, I detoured to the short story and was baffled about why it needed to be read where it was. I think it helps add some weight and maybe a little more understanding to some of the emotional scenes in this installment, without giving spoilers.

Rue and the gang (including Colby!) are on the road hunting down a child killer. That’s bad enough, but what it actually ends up being is even grosser and worse. Yay for the monsters in their supernatural world! Being on a bit of a roadtrip, we don’t get a ton of the “extra” characters in this installment, minus the check-ins from “the shop” and the mysterious dark magic lurker they report on (ending aside). Instead we go on a true case with the crew trying to figure out how things in Charleston got so out of hand.

Some good things? We get to meet some other shifters and see that they are maybe the most human characters in the bunch. The team is really doing an amazing job with all the odds stacked against them. What frustrated me enough to almost scream at the book was by the end you realized there were SO MANY loose ends. They do eventually come to bite Rue, or at least maim her emotionally. Usually she is so on top of her many priorities that the fact she “forgot” about something big seemed very out of character for her.

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