The Lunatics

The Lunatics by Navessa Allen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book has such a fun premise and really interesting world building. I am not a fan of how this ended and felt a little adrift at the conclusion.

Layla, a small town girl, is a shifter who is only attending the mating ritual to support her friend. Michael, a rich businessman, is a shifter who is also only attending the mating ritual to support his brother. When the magic goes out of control during the ceremony, Layla and Michael end up the most unlikely of mates. They really do their best to make things work but it is a really strange and baggage filled mating.

Michael is a prominent member of a large and important family in the city who cannot step away from his business or his mother, the alpha. This poses a problem because new mates cannot be far from one another. It is made extra complicated because Layla is a special kind of shifter with lots of extra powers and abilities, which are now entering the mating bond. I’m sure there is a ton more to the story, but sadly the book only gives us the start of this relationship. I wanted to know more about how they navigate the supernatural politics, new relationship, new powers/abilities, and family drama. Sadly, the book ends rather abruptly, without a lot of answers to the oodles of questions bouncing around my head.

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Hexed

Hexed by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have had this anthology of short stories in my “to be read” list for a while. I picked it up because I really enjoy Ilona Andrew’s and the world that the Kate Daniel’s books built. The rest of the stories, honestly, I just hoped weren’t terrible. All in all, this was a short set of stories, with, not surprisingly, one standout among a few OK stories (for me).

I’m going to focus briefly on the story I bought this set for and simply suggest that the rest of the stories were interesting, but nothing I would go out and grab more books from. The Kate Daniel’s story was really nice. It felt familiar, but interesting. We get to see inside Dali’s head - a character who I didn’t really remember, having read the series a long time ago. Still, the story did all the work reminding me of anything I needed to know. I think you could enjoy it as a standalone, but it was a particularly satisfying bit of lore to tuck into that Kate Daniel’s world.

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