Casket Case

Casket Case by Lauren Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book made me sad. There were some shining moments of romance, the typical “I’m over him” time, small town friends and family, but I finished the book just very sad.

I guess I should have known this was coming from the description but maybe I thought there would be more quirky goodness or lightheartedness to break up the truly dark depression scenes. Nora lost her parents and has given up her career to run her family’s local casket business. She is still firmly entrenched in her depression when she meets Garrett, who just so happens to work for Death. It was very much like that show Dead Like Me, where he gets dispatched to help people not die alone. He hides this from Nora, but pursues her pretty intently.

The truth ends up coming out, because, hello, it’s a very small town where everyone knows everything about each other, but when it does, Nora goes back into a tailspin of depression. If you’re following along, that means you will need to trudge through two separate phases where we are in this with her. It was tough. Eventually we trudge to a happy ending, but then we cap it off with a truly heartbreaking ending. The writing was good, but you need to be mentally prepared to go through all this with Nora.

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Dirty Lying Wolves

Dirty Lying Wolves by Sabrina Blackburry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I’m sure I read the other books in this world, it’s been so long that I can assure you starting here is just fine. That being said, this book has a very slow build at the start, but once things start going down, it is pure chaos until the end.

June has a relatively normal life until she tries to save a woman writhing on the ground in a local part. This one action ends up getting her bitten by a werewolf and thrown into a really weird roadtrip with her new “pack.” Dom, the second to the bitey leader who is indisposed for quite some time, is on a mission to bring his pack or sort-of-rogues back to their original pack’s land. Said pack has been led by a bad guy for a while so now that they are fresh off their win in previous books, they decide to push their luck here. June got to represent us, asking all the basic questions, learning how the change happens, how the pack is organized, and eventually detectiving out why everyone tiptoes around the badness in their previous pack history.

This book has some really great characters introduced outside the slow sizzle romance of Dom and June. I would eagerly check-in on a lot of these folks after the conclusion of this story. The pack has obviously gone through a lot, but when the dust settles (or when the truth is revealed) people do the right thing in a crazy battle. I really ended up liking all the characters and got swept away in the HEA by the end. I hope we get to see more from this world.

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Tempting the Black Wolf

Tempting the Black Wolf by N.J. Walters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am so terribly sad to see this series come to a conclusion but it is a very satisfying one. I’d recommend starting at book 1 if you are peeking ahead. They all build on one another, giving us a great world.

Onyx knows she is one of the fated mates (or traps?) for the one wolf named Dagen because she has been raised in the big bad’s lair. She never knew a normal life, but has taken her time on the run to hone her skills, maybe even enough to take part in the final battle. She’s also been fighting the pull to Dagen as they dance around one another in the search for ways to break this spell/curse/destiny. It was fun to see characters that we have met separately engage directly with one another. As the “fixer” for the other wolves, we also got to see behind that curtain in this book, too.

Dagen isn’t without his own hangups, having hidden but stayed connected to his fellow lone wolves in a way that helps them all for this final showdown. He obviously doesn’t trust easily, so when Onyx’s secrets come out, it tilts his world in a way he can’t manage through. Lucky for them, the draw they feel overrides most misgivings. It’s always great when a series manages to move the pieces around in the previous books to have a great, satisfying conclusion, and this series does just that. As someone who reads a lot of paranormal romance, this had new elements and kept me guessing about who or how many would get out alive. Oh, and there is a healthy amount of sizzle, which never hurts.

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Winter Lost

Winter Lost by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This deep into the Mercy Thompson world, if you don’t know what to expect, just turn around. These books firmly build on one another in both good and bad ways, so there is lore you need to know and baggage you need to be aware of before diving in this late.

Mercy is still very much “broken” from the events in the previous book. She tries to hide it from others but is kind of terrible at it. Also, there’s a big bad vampire out to kill Mercy & Adam, but not in this book, so moving along. This book is about Mercy’s family (sort-of) and how Adam and Mercy need to stop the end of the world. It seems like that’s an almost regular occurrence, but this time it happens during winter, involves family, and forces Mercy’s injury to become a big thing.

As a road trip-type book, we don’t get a ton of time with our favorite supporting cast, but it was nice to see Mercy and Adam be with new folks, doing their thing and just being plain awesome. Would it all be more awesome if Mercy could stop hiding things from Adam? Sure. Will that ever truly happen? Probably not. This story had a lot of really interesting elements of Norse mythology that I enjoyed and it’s never a bad time with this gang. There was sadness, love, joy, action/adventure, and everything you’d expect from Mercy’s crew. The storytelling jumps around a bit, but you get used to it by the end. It probably says something that I wasn’t willing to leave this world after this book concluded and dove into the short story anthology that follows.

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Hot Hex Boyfriend

Hot Hex Boyfriend by Carly Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was sweet and adorable, complete with animals and Halloween vibes.

Delia was raised in a family of weirdos. They all believe that they are witches who are under a hex preventing them from successfully practicing magic. Delia’s mom manages to pull off a normal career as a realtor, but the rest of the family is determined to double-down on the witch stuff. Even Delia has had an endless string of failed businesses prior to her current interior design gig. As the member of the family who has been deemed the “blue witch,” it is expected that she break the hex using what she refers to as a soup recipe.

It’s in the days leading up to the expiry of her hex-breaking window that Delia meets Max. Max is a real witch but certainly can’t tell anyone that. He has been assigned to make sure that Delia does not break the very real hex that his family placed on them. As a witch who values logic over love, he is determined not to fall for the hexed witch who could cast love spells if given the power. Of course these two fall for one another in the most adorable way. It was heart-meltingly cute and, yes, there were oodles of challenges in their way. That’s what makes the ending of this book so very satisfying. What a great read!

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Hate Hex

Hate Hex by Gina LaManna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, this book was so much fun! It had it all - romance, magic, vampires, action, and sizzle!

Trixie is a witch who has decided not to practice. Bad news for her - if she doesn’t start to vent her powers somehow, she’s going to explode/die/somethingbad. She’s got a very mediocre job as a supernatural Uber driver but luckily has a great roommate to split the utility costs of her apartment that her family owns outright. Things start to veer into bad and weird territory when she has a very off-putting encounter with her building owner in the alley behind said building. It gets worse when she somehow gets nominated for a very prestigious supernatural position. This comes with a whole bunch of campaigning and politics that she is eager to ignore.

Dom, the guy who owns her building, is a vampire and he is also head-over-heels for Trixie. His name gets drawn for the same position and their worlds collide even further. Don’t worry, he does his best to mess things up at every turn, but it was fantastic (fang-tastic?) fun to watch. This paranormal romance had the best banter, silliness, but still pulled off a serious edge. If this is my introduction to this world, I absolutely can’t wait to spend more time in it! While we get happy endings for Dom and Trixie, I’d keep coming back to watch more folks find happiness.

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Last Sacrifice (re-read)

Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Original review: One thing I will say for Richelle Mead, she knows how to satisfy readers with an end to a series. I felt the same way about the Succubus series. While I am still on team Adrian, she found a way to make me appreciate Dimitri again too. I would probably just throw myself right into Bloodlines if the book wasn't overpriced. Maybe later I will miss Adrian enough to buy it, but for now, I am happy to leave the series where it is.

Updated review: Maybe it’s because I know where Adrian ends up, maybe it’s because many years have passed, but this book is less satisfying to me now on re-read. Is it a surprise where Lissa ends up? No. And that’s not just upon re-read. What was still shocking to me is how Rose ends up burning up her time-killer relationship with Adrian to hop back with Dimitri. Are they meant to be together? Yeah, sure, but… jeez. Rose has definitely left a wake of destruction in her path here.

What else? I get that we had to tie up a bunch of loose ends but somehow this roadtrip book ended up feeling rushed and a bit thrown together. All the endings for folks felt less satisfying than they did the first time around. The saving grace here is that we get the spinoff to set things more right than here. I highly recommend hitting those!

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