Gray Seas

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

Poor Rue has a lot on her plate at the moment. She’s trying to generally make changes for the better in the Black Hat Bureau, protect her mate from retaliation after her kaboom in Hael, avoid getting kaboomed herself, avoid whoever is carving up victims, stop whoever is poisoning folks, and keep the Wargs generally in line. Not too much, right? Well the end of this one adds even more to her plate.

Rue and her crew are the best, and now that we’ve got the Warg crew in some books, I’m completely on board with their food-heavy adventures. This book is a lot of chasing clues, travel, legal negotiation, lack of sleep, and it always seems to end with Rue adopting more misfits. I was very sad to get inside her cousin’s head for some chapters, but do still hold out hope that we get a happy ending for him and a certain human. This whole entire crew needs a nice roadtrip/vacation short story where they can shake it the sillies when the dust settles here. Or people stop getting blown up. Sigh.

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The Gloaming

The Gloaming by Jamie Dalton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really fantastic read from the start - I had trouble putting it down! The story dove right in (my favorite) and introduced characters I can’t wait to learn more about.

Erin is a vampire hunter. We don’t really know how that came to be, but I’m here for it. She has some slightly better skills, but her most useful is being able to sense where vampires are and heal/run a little faster than average. She and her two friends own a cafe together, and they’re all in on Erin’s secret. One is the “guy in the chair” and the other is… the idea man? Almost love interest? It’s not super clear because when we start the book we find out he was murdered, but staged to look like a suicide while away in Scotland.

These now grieving friends try to continue with life, but folks keep turning up dead under suspicious circumstances, so it doesn’t take a “guy in the chair” to figure out vampires are targeting people around Erin. It’s around this time that some infamous vampires and mystery men walk into Erin’s life, causing her to re-assess her black and white view of vampires. There’s some elements of fated mates, some interesting vampire lore, and a lot of injuries that take us through the rest of the book. It ends on a little cliffhanger, but I can forgive it as long as I get more of this!

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Love Potion Number 99

Love Potion Number 99 by Daphne James Huff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The magical elements of this story are highly suspect, but I still very much enjoyed this as a romance. Ethan and Brooke meet in a rather unconventional way and things spiral from there. When Ethan’s foster puppy eats one of Brooke’s grandmother’s prize plants they are immediately enemies, at least in Brooke’s eyes.

These two do still need to live in the same neighborhood, so while Brooke and her friends enjoy his outdoor workouts from afar, she keeps up a good front of holding the grudge. Ethan, however, is curious and putting on a good show. While Brooke is dealing with the loss of her grandmother and living up to her legacy (or against her mother’s legacy), Ethan is managing through some life changing news. Losing his parents taught him to just go where life takes him, but getting a diagnosis that puts him out of his firefighting job and into a really terrible inspector gig is not the best situation for him. A surprise invite to Brooke’s Halloween party ends up putting these two back in each other’s path and potentially exposes Ethan to a “love potion.”

It was adorable watching these two try to adapt to life as a reluctant couple, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Eventually they find their footing, but it takes a lot of the usual miscommunications to get there. I did really enjoy meeting Brooke’s friends and hope we get to see them all paired off in their own unique romance installments.

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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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