Review: Magical Redemption (Biomystic Security Series Book 4) by Jaliza A Burwell

Magical Redemption by Jaliza A. Burwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Retribution and Redemption

This is the fourth book in a continuing series. You need to read the first books to understand this one. There is a natural break at the end of this book, though there is a hook for future books.

After the attack on Biomystic Security and the loss of friends and colleagues, Laila is battered emotionally, physically and magically. Told that she can’t use her magic until she recovers enough means that she can’t even work and it makes her even more miserable. Trying to come to terms with temporarily losing the use of her magic and the loss of her friends she knows she can’t return to her home because it’s not safe, so she’s stuck in a company apartment. On top of this, her boyfriends don’t understand that magic is a part of her and can’t be ignored completely. Frustrated and feeling misunderstood and isolated she becomes a victim of another magical attack, one that seems tied to the work she’d been doing that Padraig tried to steal.

It’s been a while since I read the first three books in this series but I was reminded about it recently so decided to return to this book. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the first books and was pleased to find that I was able to follow the plot without having to re-read the first three books. The information that I needed to remind me of previous events was given in a smooth and unobtrusive manner, which I always appreciate.

In this book, we get to see more of the dragon that is moving to the city because of Laila. We finally get the full explanation of what it is he wants. We also get to learn more about the Elementalists and about Laila’s past. There is a lot of plot in this book with peril to both Laila and her lovers. She also has to deal with unfamiliar magic and fear of the unknown. The book primarily deals with the suspense/adventure part of the plot and Laila’s emotional frailties and to a certain extent, I wish there had been more about the connection between Laila and the men in her life. I didn’t feel much of a bond in this book, there just seemed to be a lot of tension, and not the good kind. I hope in future books, this gets resolved after facing a few of her demons in this book.

I won’t leave it so long, this time, until I read the next book in the series, because despite the lack of emotional connections there was a still a really interesting storyline.

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Review: Enacting Revenge (The Enchantress Series Book 4) by Erin R Flynn

Enacting Revenge by Erin R. Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tribunal Time

This is the fourth book in a continuing series and the story won’t make sense unless you read the preceding books.

This book is focused on the Tribunal when large numbers of the Elders of the supernatural world come together to deal with the transgressions of the Hawk Elder in Russia. As the accuser, Soraya is hosting the Tribunal and it’s a very fancy endeavour.

A lot happens for Soraya in this book. She meets some very old enemies and has to deal with a massive amount of fallout as a result. She also finds herself getting closer to Hunt, despite labelling him as her ‘pet’. She also finds herself courted by an angel.

The Tribunal itself is simple, it’s dealing with all the Elders that causes all the issues. Except, with the Elders, politics is often combined with an orgy! Though this is set in a different world to Seraphine Thomas there are so many similarities in this series. There is a recurring theme of a woman of power trying her best to protect those weaker than herself and who gathers more power through the human world via money and jobs. The MFC is also incredibly beautiful but insecure. They are both surrounded by ancient supernaturals who are bored and like to play wicked and sexual games every time they get together. As I like Seraphine Thomas quite a lot this isn’t a big problem for me, I just wish that the world-building was a little different to help separate the two series a bit better.

Having said all that, I still enjoyed the book and look forward to the next one.

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Review: Striking Souls (The Enchantress Series Book 3) by Erin R Flynn

Striking Souls by Erin R. Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seeing The Dead

Soraya has her hands full again in this third book of the continuing series. I'm afraid you won’t be able to follow what’s going on without reading the preceding books, but I'm sure you'll enjoy them when you go to catch up!

After the ghoul attack and the aftermath, Soraya is tired and feeling dark. When she feels like that she often goes into hermit mode, when she emerges, there’s a lot to deal with. She has a kettle of hawks who need rescuing from Russia, a psychic who has been held hostage by her sister and the fallout from erasing a greater demon from existence all needing attention. On top of all that there’s a traitor in the coven that needs dealing with.

Along with the psychic she rescues, Soraya is helping the spirits trapped in the realm of the living to cross back through the veil. We learn more about the aspect of Soraya’s powers that deals with the spiritual realm during the course of the book and the extra chapter at the end also deals with this subject in her distant past.

We also see why Soraya always holds herself back from relationships, stating she never keeps the people in her life. She always needs to have multiple partners in her life because sex helps even out her energy levels when casting vast amounts of magic. This also helps her when it's time for people to move on because she has others to hold on to.

There's some cute stuff with the kids of the coven again, which I always enjoy. It’s nice to see it’s not all just smiting and sexing for Soraya and she does have a little bit of fun!

As always, this story rattles along at a good speed and is full of plot twists and confrontations between Soraya and people who need dealing with in a permanent way. It’s always entertaining.

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Review: Thieves About (The Enchantress Series Book 2) by Erin R Flynn

Thieves About by Erin R. Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ghouls and Vampires

This is the second book of a continuing series. You need to read the first book in order to understand this book.

In this book, we learn much more about Soraya’s relationship with the ancient vampires that she hid with as a child. It’s a dark and twisted history with some moments of genuine affection thrown in to confuse the issue even more.

The case that Soraya is involved with, in this book, revolves around someone summoning ghouls and they are relying on Soraya to clean up the mess they leave when they lose control of them. When dealing with the case she comes into contact with a young vampire, who is running the case for SPU, with whom she engages in lots of hot sex. Detective Hunt has also moved into her apartment building so is sniffing around for more information but he seems conflicted about Soraya and his attraction to something he hates.

We once again see how Soraya protects her coven and even the other supernaturals of her city and how hard she works to provide for everyone she can.

At the end of the book is an additional chapter that is a flashback to when she first sought refuge with the nest of ancient vampires. It’s not essential to the story, but it’s really good additional information that explains a lot.

Another good story that sucks you in. I’ll definitely keep reading the series.

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Review: Royal Dragon Renegade (Royal Dragon Shifters of Morocco Series Book 8) by Ava Ward

Royal Dragon Renegade by Ava Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Binding Her Dragons

This book continues from book 7 and cannot be read separately from the rest of the series if you want to understand what is going on.

The first half of this book starts quite slowly. It’s basically all about Layla reconnecting with the dragons from her bind that she was cut off from in a previous book. Everyone thought they would re-bind as soon as Layla returned from Hunter’s realm, but everyone’s emotions prevented it. This book deals with each dragon and Layla’s problems and how they work through it.

Things start to ramp up with Adrian because he is holding back from the bind for some reason and Layla doesn’t want to push him but also doesn’t want to let it go for too long. She has a fine line to walk.

This really is a superb series and the world that this author has created never seems to dim in beauty. Ava Ward’s descriptions are vivid and enthralling, though I have to say there were a few places where her adjective choice seemed a little strange. She also repeated a lot of her adjectives, even the strange ones, which made them more noticeable. It felt a little like she became fixated on a word and just used it repeatedly, whether it was relevant or not. One example is the use of the word disastrous or disastrously that got used repeatedly and I don’t think it really works when describing someone’s eye colour as “..a hot, disastrous turquoise.” This really was the only niggle as far as I was concerned. I enjoyed the whole book as much as the rest of the series, so I can accept the occasional odd word selection, even if it is a little distracting.

The last book in the series is next and I don’t know if I want to read it immediately to know how it all ends or delay it as long as possible so I don’t have to finish the series. I know, sometimes I’m a little strange in my choices!

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Review: Viper : The Prophecy (Odin's Wolves MC Series Book 2) by Candi Fox and Linny Lawless

Viper : The Prophecy by Candi Fox and Linny Lawless
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mythology in Modern Times

I'd probably give this book 3.5 ⭐ if I could

This is the second book in a continuing spin-off series. It's not really a standalone. Viper is a demigod, the son of Odin and Gaia. He is an immortal werewolf dedicated to the fight for justice alongside his immortal brothers, the Odin’s Wolves MC. Moving from Dallas where he was a police officer to White Horse, OK to join his brothers. He meets Billie on his way to White Horse, seeing her fight for a Dark Fae she is desperate to escape from. Billie has been trapped by a contract to a Dark Fae since she was a teenager. She has been forced to kill in a fight ring in a way that hurts her soul.

Billie has no memories of before she was a child wandering the streets, starving and hiding in dumpsters. That is how she got trapped by the Dark Fae when he offered her food and safety.

Drawn to one another immediately when Billie finally escapes, Viper helps her and they are led to search for the answer to a prophecy.

There is a great deal of hot and heavy action in this book. Not just between Viper and Billie but between side characters too, that may have felt a little gratuitous with very little impact on the plot, though I may be wrong and find it’s helpful in future books. Despite the gratuitous sex, there was also some sweet and tender moments and not just romantically but also between friends.

The plot was interesting and we got to meet a vast array of different characters of different races and in different locations, some helpful, others not so much. There is a definite nod to the future but the ending was kind of confusing. I’m not really sure where it was going.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable book.

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Review: Blade to the Keep (Goddess With A Blade Series Book 2) by Lauren Dane

Blade to the Keep by Lauren Dane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Goddess, Vampires and Magic

At the end of the last book, Rowan was appointed as the Liaison between the Vampire Nation and Hunter Corp. In the few months since then, she has been working tirelessly to get an amendment to the Treaty made that will ensure that Hunters can get access to vital information before humans start dropping like flies and risk exposing the supernatural world.

At the Keep where she grew up, for the first time since she was 16, Rowan is working hard to push through the amendment, make peace with the vampire that raised her, the oldest vampire in existence, and reunite with the people of the Keep who she cared for.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book is the understanding that Rowan has gained about her foster father. She is now 30 and has worked with Hunter Corp for over a decade. She has faced down strong and dangerous vampires and survived. She has gained distance from the hurt young woman who fled after finding out how utterly ruthless her foster father, Theo, truly was.

As Rowan has come to accept the actions of her foster father, she does not condone them, but she does understand him a little better with her own increased experience and wisdom. Part of that understanding is coming to see, no matter his actions, Theo, really loves her, even if the way he expresses that love is completely alien to her own human understanding. There are few frames of reference between a human child and a 3000-year-old born vampire. There aren’t many vampire books that really capture this disparity of thought processes between species and cultures as well as this book does.

This book was mainly about politics and violence, which also encompasses Rowan and Theo’s relationship. On opposing sides in name, but really fighting towards the same end of maintaining the treaty that protects both humanity and the Vampire Nation, leads to some delicate dancing, which is interesting to read about.

I also enjoyed the developing feelings between Clive, the Scion for North America and Rowan. It started in the first book as pure lust between them, but there is a definite softening in feelings in this book.

It’s an entertaining and satisfying read and I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series.

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Review: Rage: Redemption (Odin's Wolves MC Series Book 1) by Candi Fox

Rage: Redemption by Candi Fox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting Spin Off

This book comes between books 3 and 4 of the Naked Truth series by the same author, Candi Fox. It’s needed to understand the timeline which makes it less of a spin-off and more a change of focus in my opinion. However, there is a definite change of focus, so it makes sense to label it as such.

This spin-off is about Odin’s Wolves MC, which is made up of Odin’s warrior wolves of legend. They are immortal and half shifter and half god. When they felt Freya wake on earth a year or so ago, they decided to move to White Horse OK, to be close to her avatar. What they didn’t realise that by coming there they would be meeting someone who had been important to them a previous life.

This story is about Jami, or Rage as he is known. We actually met him in an earlier Naked Truth book when he seemed to know Harley, but this was never followed upon. Rage met his mate, Desiré when she walked into the meeting room to waitress on her first day in her new job. He knows it is her immediately and a huge chunk of ice in his chest begins to melt at the thought of having a mate.

The problems is that Desiré comes with a violent ex-husband, who she has been running from for 3 years, to keep her and her son safe. This time her ex has involved the Twisted, the corrupted werewolves that Odin’s Wolves MC fight as their duty and right. Harley came across the Twisted in book 3 of The Naked Truth Series and they infected her lover with their venom. Harley and OWMC’s purposes align and they work together.

The POV is from the OWMCs side. Harley is a supporting character in this book. In some ways, this book is more like a traditional Paranormal Romance/MC book. It’s one alpha male and one damaged female in need of rescue. I enjoyed the book and it filled in some information that I felt was missing from The Naked Truth books.

I like the idea of Odin’s Wolves and the mythology of it all and I enjoy an adventure into the territory of the gods and goddesses. As with previous books in The Naked Truth series there was a bit of jumping around and assumptions made that weren’t explained until later, when the characters (and the author) acted as though it had been explained to us poor confused readers, but it hadn’t, and we just had to scratch our heads for a while until it became obvious.

There was plenty of heat and the romance worked ok, but as is often the case with these fated mate stories it was a bit insta-love for my taste. Still, I’m sure I’ll read the next book in the series because I kind of like the supporting characters and I’ll be interested to see what happens to them.

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Review: Alpha & Omega (Alpha & Omega Series Book 0.5) by Patricia Briggs

Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The version I read was in On the Prowl and I decided to read this again before re-reading the whole Alpha and Omega series, which I like to do periodically. This book helps makes sense of the start of the first book in the series Cry Wolf, so it's good to start here first. This story tells us about how Charles and Anna met in Chicago when Charles was sent there by his father, The Marrok, the leader of all the American werewolves.

Anna believes she is a submissive wolf, at the bottom of the pack and has to obey everyone else above her level of dominance. She has lived a truly horrible life for the last three years, and the only thing that broke her free was witnessing someone else’s suffering and getting the strength of will to call The Marrok and tell him about it.

Charles has always been known as the bogeyman of the werewolf world. He is his father’s executioner and performs the role exceptionally well because he’s incredibly dominant as well as lethal. Charles had already been sent to Chicago to sort out another problem and he is redirected by his father to protect Anna whilst investigating what is actually going on in the city. Stunned to find the beautiful and rare Omega, a rank that is described as a zen alpha werewolf, hidden away in Chicago his wolf is instantly smitten and he’s not far behind. Together they work to solve the mess of the Chicago pack that made Anna.

This is a wonderful short story, that sets up the new series beautifully. It helps us understand Anna and how she became a wolf and gives a brief insight into the mysterious and stoic Charles. It’s a brief story, but it covers important character information and sets up the larger world of the werewolves that don’t get looked at much in the Mercy Thompson series, of which this is a spin-off. That world focuses on all the races of the supernatural because Mercy isn’t a werewolf. This story allows the focus to be more fully on a very different pack to the one Mercy was raised in and the one she eventually joined.

You could probably get away with not reading this novella before starting the series, but I knew I had it so decided to read it to get the complete experience!

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Review: Flame Kissed (Phoenix Rising Series Book 1) by Annie Anderson

Flame Kissed by Annie Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Complex and Intriguing World

This is actually the second time I tried to read this book. I think the first time I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to read it and enjoy it because there are some quite complicated plot ideas and world building that aren’t quite always explained in a way that makes it easy to comprehend. However, second time around, after reading a few other books by this author I was able to work around my lack of comprehension because the world was explained in those later books differently. At the end of the book is a comprehensive glossary, if I had known it was there when I got confused I could have saved my brain too much work.

Aurelia is a phoenix, and a seer. As a young woman she was told that she wasn’t going to be given a choice, as should have been the case, to either become an oracle and lose her sight or to choose exile. Aurelia didn’t want to become an oracle and chose to rebel, and married her lover in secret. When the leader of their people found out her wishes were ignored she forced the man who loved Aurelia in secret, Rhys, to kill Aurelia’s husband and this lead to Aurelia losing her baby.

160 years later she is living as an artist, hidden from the world, mentally and emotionally fragile, her only real friend a wraith and protected from the shadows by the man who killed her husband, who was bonded to her by force by the leader of her people. When she is found by her people, she and Rhys escape with their lives but others do not.

This book has violence and heartache, but it also has friendship and love. The world of phoenix and wraiths is fascinating and complex, I just wish I’d known about the glossary before I started reading because some concepts are not explained clearly in the actual body of the book.

Aurelia is a strange mixture of fragile and tough. She has been pounded with visions of death that don’t stop for 160 years, whilst being largely alone to deal with her personal losses and trauma. She suffers from PTSD and all of the hideousness that entails. However, she has made herself physically strong, unlike most seers, who rely on their Soldiers to protect them. She trains in martial arts every day and has exceptional weaponry skills. She uses this to balance out feeling mentally or emotionally weak and burns through her anguish physically.

Rhys is a man who has been loyal and determined in his long-distance protection of the woman he is bound to. He is strong physically and mentally, despite his personal losses. He has been slightly less isolated than Aurelia, but still has few friends considering his age.

These two characters make for intriguing chemistry and it is enjoyable watching them spark and flare. I also liked some of the supporting characters and look forward to seeing them develop later in the series.

Now I’ve got over my initial resistance to this book, I know I’ll read the rest of the series because each book will make things clearer so my confusion, the thing that annoyed me the most about this book, will become less.

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Review: Woman of Blood & Bone (Rogue Ethereal Series Book 1) by Annie Anderson

Woman of Blood & Bone by Annie Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Immortal Witch

Max is over 400 years old. She was cast out of her coven at age 14 by her mother for something beyond her control and was never trained in her witchcraft. She cannot die. She has died in many horrible, traumatising and painful ways, but she always wakes up again, and she doesn’t know why.

She now lives in Denver and works with her best friend Striker in their tattoo shop. Striker is also long-lived and is empathic, which is obviously quite a stressful state to be in all the time.

One day a man comes in to be tattooed and his very pregnant girlfriend is left outside with Striker who realises that she is in trouble. Max puts the guy to sleep and they set about trying to help the young woman. Except, the man isn’t exactly a man.....

I haven’t read the series before this one and feel there are gaps in my knowledge about these characters, which I find annoying. It’s frustrating to have snippets thrown at me that I feel that the author expected me to know, except I don’t. I wish authors would write in their blurbs that there is a series before the one you are about to start, so you at least have a heads up.

Apart from the missing information, the plot was really interesting. The characters are fascinating, especially Max. She has had some truly horrible stuff happen to her, mostly as a result of showing her magic to help others and she still keeps trying to help.

Striker is more of an enigma. He seems a little weaker emotionally because of enduring the never-ending battering of other people’s emotions. It seems to me that the relationship is a little bit skewed because of this.

I liked the world-building and plot was good but I feel that there is a lot more that needs to be shared before I can form a proper opinion of the whole series.

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