Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12) by Faith Hunter

Jane, the Dark Queen, Enforce for Leo Pelessier, the Vampire ruler of the Greater South East United States is preparing for the duel that is finally here. A duel between Leo and the Emperor of the European vampires - a duel that will dictate the future of all vampire and witch kind

Assuming the visiting vampires haven’t plotted to undermine and interfere before the duel even begins

And assuming the American government doesn’t look at this gathering of the most powerful and dangerous vampires in the world and doesn’t just bomb it.

Jane has her hands full… and ow is really not the time for a man to appear claiming to be her long lost brother she never knew she had, especially when he introduces himself by shooting her

This is something of an epic finale to everything that has been happening for several books now - and the whole book is powerful tense and epic. The massive duel between Leo and the many vampires coming from Europe. We see all of his gathered entourage come out to fight, we see all the complex preparations, the betrayals, the plotting, the counter-plotting and how absolutely no-one is playing fair.

It all has an incredibly tense feel, from the very first page of the book you know some of these characters are going to die, that everything is going to change. It is maintained every second, not for one second do you forget even through side plots, even through the moments with Beast (beast is awesome, beast is best hunter and I have no idea why her writing doesn’t annoy me, but it doesn’t - I love her) that tension never leaves

Jane moves through it all and she’s amazing, powerful, competent, in control yet listening and learning from the people around her, people she genuinely loves and values. And even when she’s sat, maudling, or the fights of the actual duel are dragged out or we have a political scene which goes on and on and on for pages it all works and doesn’t feel sluggish because of that tension, power and sense of change behind everything. Thematically this book is amazing, the writing just works and the emotion doesn’t stop.

I really like Jane’s relationship with her brother. The conflict of it, the hopes mixed with the disappointment, the reactions, the conflict, the quashed ideals all are so powerful. I like the layers, I like that he has his own history and conflict, I like the legacy her example has set but I also appreciate her pain and anger over how he chose to introduce himself and how he chose to re-enter her life.  It created a fascinating complicated story. And, though I know next to nothing about Cherokee history or culture or language, there does seem to be a lot of research and effort into making these meaningful inclusion, ensuring that Jane isn’t just carrying around woo-woo from being Native American and nothing else. But i cannot speak to the accuracy of it.

Victoria Marmot and the Meddling Goddess (Victoria Marmot #1) by Virginia McClain

Victoria is trying to get away from life for a moment, still dealing with the sudden death of her parents

But things start getting weird when a woman starts randomly narrating her life - and mentioning a quest she’s supposed to be embarking on. She has no time for such nonsense - she has a new school to attend… a school with supernatural beings which was definitely unexpected

But then there’s a surprise reunion, an actual goddess getting involved and a whole world she never expected

I’m intrigued by this book - and a little frustrated

Intrigued because as I was reading it I felt like this was something of a parody of urban fantasy, paranormal romance and paranormal YA. We open with our protagonist actually confronting the narrator in a hilarious scene where she is bemused and horrified at this person stalking her and feeling the need to describe all of her actions aloud. I laughed out loud, literally, and was hooked. Honestly this line:

"Her chestnut hair barely reflected the starlight, her mint-green eyes flashing with confusion as her caramel skin darkened to the color of milk chocolate with increasing ire.

"Who the fuck is hiding in the woods describing me like a damned dessert?"

Or that Fate is known as the “DM”. It’s geeky joy!

This follows a rather inept werewolf losing his clothes when shifting and having Victoria slightly bemused by this wolf. Oh and a vampire who keeps doing things like declaring his love and watching her while she sleeps and being treated like the depraved stalker that he is.

This is hilarious. This is awesome. Throw in a headmaster with a whole lot of cannabis and a bemusing school setting and we have a fun book here and I just want to learn more about Victoria and her weird school friends dropping real sensibilities one the rather bemusing storylines we see so often

Silver Silence (Psy/Changeling # 16 Psy/Changeling: Trinity #1) by Nalini Singh

Silver Marcant is the scion of the power, influential, Marcant family. She is also the assistant of Kaleb Krycheck, de facto leader of the Psy. She also runs the global emergency response network

She is a busy woman

She has little time for people trying to kill her, or big clumsy werebears trying to insert themselves into her life

This book marks the transition of the Psy/Changeling series into the new series, the Trinity era - and I really have to praise how excellently this has been structured, as I referred to in Allegiance of Honour the transition book in the series. That book excellently summed up where nearly everyone was in their lives, the position of the world and what would be the new conflict coming forwards. The overarching story of the last 15 books has been the fall of Silence

Silence is over. Silence is done, that chapter is closed and with Allegiance of Honour setting up the new foundation we have the new conflict: what happens now? Where is the world? Especially as it becomes apparent that the different races need to be more united than ever

Behold the Trinity - where Silence has fallen and the whole world has changed - and with it the whole tone of the series is much broader as well. The previous series felt more focused… we had a couple and the werewolf pack/psy group they were part of. And it was pretty much localised. Yes there was the fall of Silence, but largely the battle against Silence for most of the Psy characters for most of the books has been survival. Even the Arrows, the Shapeshifter packs, Devraj Santos’s hidden group, are all stories of survival (well and romance, obviously). Survival against the evils of Psy Society, against discovery and occasionally about their survival against their own exploding psy abilities. Yes society is changing in the background but that’s more a side effect of their quest for survival rather than a goal they’re actively pursuing until the last few books

And so now we have Trinity and I think branching a whole new series was the ideal way to do that and emphasise how the foundational theme of the series has changed. Trinity, forged from the Humans, Changelings and Psy to create a more hopeful, united future. And paradoxically, a more diverse one (in terms of factions): the Psy have somewhat broken or, rather, with the fall of the Council the divisions have become more relevant. We don’t have “the psy” we have the Arrows and the Empath Collective and the Nightsky group and Kaleb’s faction suddenly being more individually defined even as they work together. Or the shapeshifter packs who are distinct entities rather than the unity of the Wolves and Leopards. I think they’ve always been so divided but rarely were they all so involved in the close, personal focus of the previous books.

Which brings me to the excellent choice of Silver as the protagonist for this book - Silver Mercant so nicely bridges all of this and brings the new collective focus on several factions since she’s the head of the global emergency network while she herself is both perfectly aligned with Kaleb Krycheck while at the same time being a member of the powerful Mercant family which is allied with him but definitely not in his pocket. Silver represents the different factions being balanced but ultimately acting in unity that truly defines this new series. She’s an excellent choice of protagonist to herald in this new era

The Mane Squeeze (Pride #4) by Shelly Laurenston

Bears!

Werebears! Why do we have so few shapeshifter books about werebears? We need more werebears!

Big clumsy snuffling, curious werebears that just want to know how things work and then end up breaking them because they’re just big, hulking, strong goofy people who are just adorable!

And all the bears want is plenty of honey and salmon and sleeping a nice long time all in peace without the other shapeshifting species getting in the way.

While those other shapeshifting species view them as massive engines of destruction to be poked at your own risk. And I think that’s a nice element; I mean we have big scary wolves and lions but when it comes down to it, a grizzly bear is a grizzly bear and every other predator is better off leaving it alone.

So we have Lock, our big, sexy, lumbering bear with his ice cream and honey and nice long sleep in and his quietly perfectionist carpentry, being generally exasperated by the manic antics of all the other shapeshifters around him. Oh and he knows that lions, tigers or bears, a Philly girl is apparently scarier than anything else, which amuses me muchly.

And those antics include the Wild Dogs which may still be my favourite shifters in this series because they’re goofy and silly and they have fun and they play and they chase their tails but are still probably more united and more serious and even more dangerous than the other packs. I love their whackiness, their geekiness, their squabbles and how they leave the poor bears thoroughly thoroughly confused by all that energy, random weirdness and big tearful eyes if they need to get there.

And I like Gwen and her story - I like her struggles for independence in the face of her mother’s plan for her - and her brother’s interference. I like that, even though she has the skills and knowledge to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she’s pursuing something else she wants to do. She faces a lot of discrimination because she’s a hybrid - a child of two different shapeshifters: She’s a Tigron, half tiger half lion. I think more could have been made of her Tigron nature and what it means - same as her best friend Blayne who is part wolf part wild dog. But I think it’s interesting that they didn’t emphasise any supernatural difference: because it’s not necessary or even accurate - and instead focused on how they were treated differently. A lot of supernatural prejudice involves a group facing discrimination but it turns out that, yeah, there’s a good reason for that. This managed to emphasise both the direct hatred they faced AND the subtle, not-feeling-welcome feeling that Gwen’s family gave her felt more real.

Gwen and Blayne have a great mutually supportive relationship covering their mutual plumbing business (which is excellent) through to calling each other out on their ridiculousness, through to roller derby. They work really well together and have an excellent us-two-against-the-world vibe.

So I like Gwen and her storylines building her own life . I like Lock, the concept of him and this poor, hulking lethal giant just wanting a quiet life with his family and the wild dogs pushing him to be more

But I’m not sure I see their connection. It’s not that they’re bad together - because her random weirdness and his quiet curiosity make for a lot of very fun scenes. But I don’t see them really being connected in any of the larger metaplot, nor is Loch part of the family/friend group established in the last three books - which is different from the actions of the previous books - and rather than kind of introduce Lachlann to the greater friend group he’s kind of dropped in as if he’s always been there with a sudden military link and friendships that seem to have come from nowhere. It hasn’t said “hey, here’s Lachlan, let us introduce him and build connections”, instead it just pretended he’d always been there.

Nightshift (Midnight Texas #3) by Charlaine Harris

People are committing suicide at the Midnight crossroads. Once is tragic, twice unlikely and three times definitely more than a coincidence

There’s a dark presence under the crossroads. It’s been there for centuries - but it’s waking up. The inhabitants only clue to what it is and what it wants is in a book that none of them can read. They’re running out of time and the dark voice Fiji hears is growing louder

Meanwhile Olivia’s family may have finally caught up with her - with lethal repercussions and increased suspicion about the true motives of her neighbours

I really do like the concept of Midnight - a small town in rural Texas where the supernatural gathers, where people with secrets gather to build their new life. Over the last few books this has developed further as the members of the community have grown closer together. And this is something Charlaine Harris has always been very very good at: building a community, building all those little social interactions, those visits and family histories and little gossips that gives a real sense of community

This does, in some cases, slow the pacing as various characters discuss their issues with each other, then discuss those issues with other characters and all pry into each other’s business - especially since we have a lot of characters all with their own back stories and issues (which I, again, really like). But it works here because the overall story of this small town is the community that has been built here. So I don’t mind that we spend what appears to be a truly unnecessary amount of time discussing Lemuel’s human life even though it adds absolutely nothing to the plot. Or that we have Manfred’s old cronies from Las Vegas living nearby. Or the time spent gossiping around tables discussing what Chuy and Joe are (which is not known for most of this book and these are somewhat peripheral characters - which is a little weird given what they’re facing). It works because that’s what these books are.

I do think Olivia’s story is a little…. Weirdly convoluted. But hey, it’s not completely out there so I can run with it.

At times it seems the characters are somewhat distracted from the main plot, largely waiting for Lemuel to translate a convenient book he’s found - convenient in that it has all the answers and plot convenient in that it’s written in a convoluted ancient language for no good reason (and, honestly it makes little sense and really is just a method of drawing out the main plot so they can focus on the smaller side plots and relations. But it works).

The plot itself does have those convenience issues and does sort of circle slowly towards the ending rather than run for it - and it has some weird road bumps with Olivia’s story kind of running mundanely across the main supernatural - there’s something dark and evil under the crossroads plot line.

Iron and Magic (Iron Covenant #1) by Ilona Andrews

Hugh D’Ambrey, the great Biblical wizard’s Warlord, has been banished from his presence. For decades, longer, Hugh was Roland’s servant and a lethal, terrifying fighting force and general. And now he doesn’t know who he is

But his soldiers rely on him, people hold grudges, his rival Ness especially. They need safety, they need a home - but who would trust them

Ilara and her people need protection. They’ve been driven to run for too long but are now secure in an actual castle… but they have no soldiers. And Ness wants their land.

It’s not a romantic match… but it is a practical one.

It is so hard to review an Ilona Andrews book. It’s hard because the things that make these books so special - the awesome world building, excellent characters, massively fun storylines and tight, descriptive yet well paced writing are pretty much the same in every book. Early on they set the bar at awesome and kept repeating the same levels of awesome and that leaves me with a happy stunned with joy, grieving because I’ve finished it and then flummoxed on how to produce a review that isn’t a duplicate of the last review

This book follows Hugh D’Ambrey - a very different standpoint from Kate given how he has been such a major villain for much of the Kate Daniels Series and how he is, pretty much, The Worst. I admit to having some reservations - I’m not against redeemed villain narratives but all too often they’re done far too simplistically which rarely if ever actually touches real redemption and usually amounts to a handwaving of their past

But this worked. Because it didn’t try to redeem Hugh. Hugh is a monumental bastard and always has been. He doesn’t claim to be different, Ilara doesn’t think he’s different, even the fact he wants to preserve his people isn’t presented as making him a good guy. Even exploring his toxic relationship with Roland and how Roland controlled him isn’t used to redeem or excuse him (though it does include some really excellent character growth moments as Hugh basically learns how to be Hugh without Rolan’s overwhelming presence). Even meeting old enemies who are grudgingly willing to work with him isn’t presented as forgiveness, even when he apologises. Even his own levels of self-hatred and self-recrimination: all of this is here but, at the same time, I don’t think the book ever intended me to think “Hugh is a good guy now”.

And I really like his relationship with Ilara. Firstly she’s an equal - she has her people and he has his both are the supreme leaders who have earned a vast amount of loyalty and even as the two factions begin to blur, it never happens in a way that undermines either of them. Neither are ever the junior partners and while he clearly has combat advantages over her in some situations, she is equally clearly the one with by far the most powerful magic.

And they hate each other which I love. Yes, I know I talked about persistence not being a virtue and love interests whose dislike is worn down by one party’s persistence. But that isn’t happening here - Hugh and Ilara marry for political reasons, so people will believe that their alliance is real (especially since Hugh. under Roland broke a whole lot of alliances). But Hugh and Ilara despised each other from the very first day and their sparring is glorious. Their searing loathing for each other (even as it slowly melts into respect but is never ever not a battle) is hilarious and mutual - Hugh isn’t setting out to win Ilara’s heart and Ilara

Lake Silence (The World of the Others #1) by Anne Bishop

Vicky DeVine has just manages to escape a viciously abusive marriage and in the settlement she was granted ownership of the Jumble. A house and a collection of dilapidated cabins on the banks of Lake Silence. A beautiful location for a holiday - but she only owns the cabins. The terra indigene own the land and have set strict rules on how it can be used.

Vicky DeVine, building her new life is learning and adapting quickly to what that means.

But other people have seen her land and all the potential it has - and all the money they can make if they can just get Vicky out of the way… but you ignore the Others at your own peril

This book has a lot of parallels with original The Others series. And I’m torn. Because I do wonder if perhaps there are too many close parallels…?

The protagonist is Vicky Divine. She is a very vulnerable woman who is also inclined to breakdowns. She is threatened by a human force that want to use, abuse and threaten her but she makes connections with the Terra Indigene, the Others, who are willing to protect her. She is acting, in some ways, as a liaison between the Terra Indigene and humanity, her position as landlord of the Jumble, a Terra Indigene settlement/human holiday resort, brings her into close contact with the Others. She’s also being used by the Terra Indigene who want to learn about humanity and what it means to be human. Alongside we have some police desperately trying to stop some foolish humans from provoking the Others into violent retaliation

Which sounds a lot like The Meg… a vulnerable woman who is inclined to breakdowns who was threatened by humans that want to use, abuse and threaten her. She makes connections with the Terra indigene, living in a Terra Indigene settlement,as their liaison with humanity, helping humans coexist with the Others and allowing the Others to learn more about humanity. Along side there were police desperately trying to stop some foolish humans from provoking anti-human genocide (and… kind of failing)

The parallels are… really strong

But is that a problem? I mean, while there are issues, I love The Others series. I really love it. It’s one of my favourite series and Renee and I both looked forward eagerly for the next book of The Meg. This book having many very similar elements to a series I already loved feels like something I SHOULD consider negative but honestly I kind of love it. The Others series is over… it’s gone. But here it is, rising again and the series being very similar feels like a good thing to me.

I love this book. I love the old series. I love Vicky learning about the idiosyncrasies of the Others around her. I love them learning about her. I love the focus on Aggie Crowguard who is so much fun. I love Grimshaw trying to stop something happening that will provoke a lethal response from the Others in the lake and wild country.

There is less focus on the interaction between The Others - Ilya Sanguinati, the main force in the area is far more aware of humanity than Simon Wolfguard was - he’s a lawyer and he even tries to work within human law to fight against those encroaching on Vicky’s land and the wild country. It’s an excellent, exciting and really funny balance between “here is my injunction” and “the fire elemental will turn you to ash.” And it works, it really works. That balance is struck.

The Beast in Him (Pride #2) by Shelley Laurenston

Back in high school Jessica was awkward, lonely, bullied, helpless and desperate

Many years have passed since then - she’s now successful, powerful, rich, has an awesome network of friends and an amazing pack. Of course she has some old scores to settle and is perfectly willing to give old crush Bobby Ray Smith the run around.

I love Jessica. And I would love this entire book to be the story of her awesome life. Jessica was an orphan and grew up almost friendless, ostracised and severely bullied. Her family lost through a plague that hit so many were-wild dogs (and I like that the world building includes elements like that - that a disease can his one population and what that does to their culture and survival). We then have the gap to adulthood

Jessica is wealthy, successful, snarky and she has a pack. And while I am a complete and utter cat person and would never ever ever have a dog, I absolutely love the wild dog pack. I love how they have fun. I love how they rely on each other. I love how they constantly support each other. I love their bonds, I love their karaoke, I love their family and how important it is to them. I love how they support other lost orphans and work closely with them to help them feel belonging and connected.

I just want the story of Jessica. I want the story of her and her four closest friends. I want their fun, I want their complete lack of embarrassment over everything (they’re not wolves - they’re dogs. And since when do dogs care about being silly?)

And I want the story of her claiming her power; not just wealth and success but how she built her pack and staked out territory and her pack together. There’s some excellent, awesome scenes where this wild dog pack showed just how much they are contenders and excellently take down the packs who look down on them.

Jessica is also a Black woman. She is completely lacking in stereotypes or tropes or other elements that so often make us cringe when we see a Blackety-Black portrayals. On the downside I reached page 163 and read “get my Black, Wild-dog ass out of there” and said “wait, she’s Black”? Which is almost a little odd because one of her pack is Asian and that’s very clear; we also have another Japanese wild dog who visits and is a major business partner which is very overt.

The Mane Event (Pride #1) by Shelly Laurenston

Mace Llewellyn has changed a lot since his teenaged years - now out of the army and all grown up so very well (and his lion’s mane now growing out to its full glorious length) but he never forgot Desiree MacDermot.

When a murder in his mother’s pride brings him home, he is again reunited with now police detective Desiree. Their attraction burns - but there’s a murder to investigate and Desiree knows nothing of the supernatural - or the politics of werelion prides

While Ronnie Lee, werewolf, has had a wild life and she thinks she’s ready to make better choices and settle down. But does Brendon Shaw, werelion ready to leave the pride life count?

I love so many aspects of the world building here. So many books have sued the concept of the supernatural to justify all kinds of weird and regressive ideas (like alpha werewolves being abusive arseholes for romance and everyone considering it perfectly ok). Which is why I really like how the concept of werelions here is so turned on its head. A society where the men basically do nothing but breed with multiple women and get fed? That sounds so ideal for creating said abusive nonsense. But instead we see female dominated societies, men traded back and forth as breeding stock and discarded when they’re no longer useful (Brendan is considered less useful to the Llewellyn family because he’s already bred several times; they have children from him they don’t especially need him any more). The men live lives of relatively idle luxury but it comes with being treated as very hungry decorative ornaments who can fight really well. One of the linking elements between Brandon, Mace and Mitch is that they’re all heavily opting out of the Pride system because they object to this treatment and usage.

The Hyenas also look savagly interesting. Again a strong sense of community and culture from another supernatural group. If I have any complaint about the world building and these excellent cultures it’s that we focus so much on the romance between the characters that we don’t actually explore these cultures, this world building (and anything else that may be out there) as much as I’d like - there’s something really excellent here but we’re focused so much on the, admittedly fun, relationship that we don’t really delve into it.

I also like the plot lines which explore the worlds far more - the conflict between the shapeshifter groups, the importance of various characters and how certain actions are considered “cheating” even in relatively violent societies and how investigating requires territory wrangling - the plot intertwines excellently with this and is fun to watch. And I quite liked that there were two stories here - because when we focused on Mace we kind of ignored Brandon despite him being more centrally a victim. It was nice to step back and revisit the person who had taken the most hits here

The Mane Attraction (Pride #3) by Shelly Laurenston

Mitch has a price on his head - he’s due to testify and the very bad man who he’s testifying against would rather he didn’t. This didn’t stop Mitch, a werelion, attending a wedding full of shapeshifters with his best friend Sassy; but the evening was rather ruined when he was shot

Sassy decided the best way to keep him safe was to take him home to Tennessee to heal where none of his enemies should suspect him being. Of course with her brother, pack politics and an upcoming football game this definitely isn’t a quiet life, especially when friendship creeps into more

I do quite like how the animals that each person turns into informs their culture and personalities. Like the werewild dogs are playful and completely lacking in any kind of shame, extremely communal and convivial and have all kinds of fun while being super, ridiculously over-enthusiastic. I can see these people virtually wagging their tails as they hit the dance flaw with their terrible moves or sing karaoke, all the while the werewolves look on with embarrassment and the werecats are utterly horrified.

Even when this skirts close to reinforcing dubious tropes - like the male lions eating a ridiculous amount and expecting the lionesses to serve them (while at the same time it’s clear the lionesses only tolerate a certain number of lions in the pride) but at the same time it being very clear that there’s a whole lot of veiled tolerance going on and the lionesses in general considering them nigh useless because of this. It’s a nice subversion of having animal traits translate over to their were equivalent without upholding it as good and proper or justified or something to be happy about.

I like the idea of shapeshifter villages and towns in rural America with their own customs, shops and hobbies, linked with how different they are from urban shifters because, in their own towns, they can be so much more openly themselves and develop these practices without humans watching. At the same time I also like that they’re clearly affected by human culture as well, not necessarily unified as one shapeshifter unit or by breed (like a werelion who feels more alignment with southern shapeshifters than she does a yankee werelion)

This book may be one of the very few romances out there that I was actually invested in - because it was one of the very few romances where I could truly believe Sassy and Mitch as a couple long before they had sex. Because they’re fun - they’re so much fun together. They’re friends, and it shows. They can actually have a conversation beyond their relationship or the mission. They can spend time together and laugh and joke and generally enjoy each other’s company without having to be constantly having sex. I never realised just how rare it is to see a couple actually laugh together, a couple willing to make jokes, spend time together and genuinely enjoy each others’ company. They’re both silly, (especially him), enjoy humour, fun and yanking people’s chains for the sake of it.

In some ways them having sex actually dragged the story down because that’s it, that’s what they do. The minute they start having sex that’s all they do and their relationship suddenly feels so much less powerful: the connection between them fades under a wave of endless sex (though I do like Sassy’s horror in realising how much sex her parents are having)

One of the main flaws with this book, especially in the beginning, is the sheer number of characters (of course it turns out my google-fu fails and this is book 3 in a series damn it). There’s a wedding with everyone from very very large families all come together and there are names after names after names and I have no damn idea who half of these people are. Half way through the book I just have so many names in my head I have no idea whose Sassy’s friends whose Mitch’s relatives which of Sassy’s gazillion brothers I’m supposed to like, which are the enemy and… gods alone know who all these people are! It makes it very very hard to follow and recognise what is happening. It made things frustrating until the number of characters were pared down.

Beneath the Skin (De La Vega Cats #3) by Lauren Dane

Gibson, Bringer of the De La Vega werejaguar Jamboree, has no time or patience for representatives of a much smaller Jamboree violating his territory and makes this very very clear

And then is shot with silver bullets

Thankfully, Mia is close when he is shot and able to get him to safety; a wonderful foundation for a new friendship… but not so much when Mia and Gibson’s families have been at odds for generations. And Mia herself is still recovering from a brutal crime and trying to figure out what to do with her life: getting involved in Jamboree politics in the face of attempted murder was not on the agenda.

I’m going to say I was torn when I first picked up this book. I knew Lauren Dane as an author focuses on Paranormal Romance which I’m just not a huge fan of. This isn’t a criticism of her or the genre by any means, merely an expression of different taste. So that leads me to think “not for me” and back off - except she also wrote the Rowan Summerwaite Series which I love and I consider it to be a deep and terrible crime that there are not more books in this series. So I approach this from a complicated position of high and low expectations.

And so we have this book - which is a paranormal romance with an interesting world, some great characters and generally something I really enjoyed which means in the future I’m going to be even more confused

Oh to add to the ways I unnecessarily complicate what should be a simple review - I managed to pick up book 3 of a series. Yes, so this is me deleting my review complaining “I feel like I jumped half way in to a series and have a missed a whole lot of back story!” It turns out that’s because I jumped half way into a series and have indeed missed a whole lot of back story. Go me. So let me add some praise for this book both giving me enough information about the characters and world setting for me to actually enjoy and understand this book but not trying to dump so much back story into this book as to make it unwieldy. Oh and this series is a spin off from an even larger series. Yes this has not been my best decision.

I often dislike the tropes that are common in most of the paranormal romances I read as they seem to be summed up by “unreasonable people turning minor issues into ridiculous convoluted obstacles”. I generally think all these people should stay away from each other because no relationship that has two people this inclined to drama could possibly work except for the neighbours if they have a big enough supply of popcorn