Tag Archives: urban fantasy

ever strange

Book Review: Ever Strange, by Alisa Woods

I picked up a copy of Ever Strange, by Alisa Woods, as an Amazon freebie last September. ever strange

An incubus FBI agent, a billionaire witch, and someone spiking street drugs with deadly magick.

Zane Walker’s undercover in Chicago’s deadliest drug cartel—and his magic is as dirty as the enhancers they peddle. When a beautiful witch storms in, making demands she thinks she can back up with magick, he’s forced into a split-second choice… and his monster rages out.

Ever Strange’s father was murdered. They made it look like an overdose, but Asher Strange, world-renown med-magick researcher, would never take tawdry magick enhancers. But before she can get an autopsy, her father’s body disappears… and being one of the richest witches in the city means she will get answers.

Someone’s putting deadly magick into street drugs… and it’s killing people all over the city. Zane’s magick is monstrous, and Ever’s power brings out his beast. But she insists on finding her father; and keeping her safe has suddenly become his job—on top of stopping an epidemic of overdoses that just might be cover for a serial killer. Together, they work to stop the dark magick that’s stalking the streets of Chicago… and try to keep their own secrets from consuming them both.

my review

I thought this an amusing, if shallowly developed, story. I picked it up because the blurb inferred that the male character used sex magic and the female one was a billionaire. I thought that subverted the norm, where woman are usually associated with sex and men with financial power. The book didn’t really utilize it in any significant way though. The characters were actually pretty standard. She was plucky and, yes, rich, (but still somehow innocent and down to earth, of course) and he was extremely dangerous, dark and brooding (but not actually the psychopathic killer people think him, of course).

But I did like both characters. After the initial introduction we see a softer side of Zane that I appreciated. No alpha-asshole here! And Ever saved the day with her skill more than once. So, no wilting violets either. And the whole thing is easily readable with no contrived misunderstandings or too-stupid-to-live drama to complicate things. But the plot is pretty thin, the world basically sketched out, and and the whole thing more more fluff than depth. But I’d read the next book if it was put in front of me.

ever strange

shifty magic

Book Review: Shift Magic, by Judy Teel

I’ve had Judy Teel’s Shifty Magic floating around in my Kindle cloud since May of 2015. So, it’s been around a while. I think I picked it up as a kindle freebie.

shifty magic

A tough teenaged girl hunts a serial killer in a paranormal dystopian world.

Abandoned at birth, Addison Kittner’s been on her own since she was a kid–ever since the paranormal terrorists attacked cities around the world. Battling creatures that go bump in the night nearly destroyed human society. Good thing not all paranormals were evil and the terrorists were eventually stopped. Bad thing? Nothing would ever be the same again.

Now Addison makes her living as a private investigator and bounty hunter. One night she comes across a girl about to be killed by three rogue vampires. Addison kicks some vamp butt and saves the girl, even when one of the vamps escapes. Just her luck, he turns up dead the next morning, inspiring the vampire leaders to put pressure on her to solve the case or take the rap. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her ex-lover, werewolf FBI agent, Cooper Daine, approaches her and gives her an offer she can’t refuse…a paycheck. Mixing business with lust is never a good idea, but neither is starving, so she accepts.

But as the body count builds, Addison finds herself embroiled in an ever deepening and dangerous mystery. One that leads her to something frighteningly personal. Her unknown heritage.

my review

I didn’t think this was bad in any explicit way, but it wasn’t outstanding either. I liked the characters well enough, it was perfectly readable, and I don’t remember any horrendous editing mishaps. But I struggled to connect with anyone or anything, and I REALLY thought the book would have been better served if the heroine had been older than just turned 19. Nothing about her felt 19. Not her jadedness, behavior, skill, or level of knowledge (these things take time to develop), not the love interest that is said to about ~3x her age, or her internal monologue, nothing. Plus, the book didn’t particularly feel YA (not that it has to be just because it has a teen heroine). I can’t know, obviously, but it felt like the author just made her that young so she could catch the YA wave of a few years back (when the book was published). But it felt jarringly wrong. All in all, not horrible. I’d read another. But I’m not rushing out to buy book two either.

shifty magic judy teel

blood hunted banner

Book Review: Blood Hunted, by K.E. O’Connor

Somewhere out if the wide world of the internet I picked up a freebie copy of K.E. O’Connor Blood Hunted, way back in 2017.
blood hunted

Her supernatural ability could be the death of her…

Macie is grieving the loss of her father and facing a deadly challenge; a powerful vampire has died and she has to host her.

Blood Hunted is book 1 in the Heir Hunters series, featuring Macie Thackery, Sarah Greenburg, a powerful witch and Damien Rule, Macie’s usually trusty vampire sidekick.

Macie needs to step up to the challenge of hosting this dangerous vampire. Will she survive this case and successfully keep Heir Hunters running?

my review

Meh, I didn’t think this was horrid, just not great either. It started out pretty well. But then the middle stumbled along, a bit aimlessly, finally finding some footing in the super cliched ‘vampire who uses mental persuasion to force lust on the main character who everyone wants’ territory and I started to lose interest pretty fast. Eventually, the book did move past it and my interest was piqued again toward the end. I think I’d read another Heir Hunters bookcertainly it was readable and the world interestingbut I’m not any real hurry about it.

blood hunted