Debbie Viguié

I don't usually write reviews with spoilers, but this one definitely deserves to be an exception.

Going back, if you successfully forced yourself to read book one, congratulations! It was one of the most boring books ever and I just kept hoping it would get better and it just didn't. Book two was slightly better, but it still had issues. If you haven't read book one, you can just skip it as all the important stuff is rehashed enough that you can understand what is going on without reading it. show more Book three was actually not bad and I sometimes did want to pick it up and read it. Book 4 was the best of the bunch and they really should have stopped there. So, on to THIS book...

Resurrection...to start, why bring back Kari, no one liked her and she didn't really bring anything to this story. She would randomly say a word or two and then everyone would take what she said as gospel...and speaking of gospel, there was way too much Christianity in this. The Magi, Satan...and making Merlin the fourth Magi AND Satan?? What's up with that?? How could he even BE both of them?? The Merlin I've always heard about was a good wizard, not an evil warlock out to destroy the world. Bringing back Eli and Nicole at the end was nice and all, but not exactly realistic in the grand scheme of things. I mean, they can all do magic and conjure things, but there are some things that just can't be done. All the loose ends were pretty well tied up, Holly's dad, Richard's wife, Armand, Pablo, etc. Everyone got their happy ending after yet another epic final battle.

All in all, if you're determined to read the series, skip book one. The rest of them aren't terrible. This one was kind of far removed from the others. I guess the characters had growth and development, but I didn't actually care about any of them, so it didn't matter to me. I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the end of this book and they should have stopped at book four. Good luck if you still decide to read all five of them. show less

Our Review [by Michelle L. Olson – LITERAL ADDICTION’s Pack Alpha]:
I was sent this book by the publisher to review. When it arrived in the mail unexpected I wasn’t sure what to think until I read the synopsis on the back cover and was immediately interested. I actually even bumped it up in my To Be Read queue (which is very unlike me) and settled in on a Saturday afternoon to see what it was all about. In one sitting I had devoured the 368 pages and wanted more. I was very glad I had show more taken a chance and went against my normal processes to read it. It was an incredible story, and for a reader like me who thoroughly enjoys and seeks out meshing of sub-genres, this was truly an incredible find!

Samantha is an amazing character. She’s a strong, sassy, reinvented woman with a past she’s trying hard to forget and a promising path to the future. When a serial killer goes on a rampage, as a Boston police officer, Samantha is naturally called in to investigate. When she discovers that there’s a definite pattern to the killings, and recognizes the symbol that’s been carved into the victims’ necks, she knows that she needs to stop the people responsible no matter the fall out. After struggling with the decision and deciding that she needs to ‘take one for the team’ so to speak and do what’s best for the greater good, she comes clean on a secret that she’s kept from almost everyone she currently associates with (and pays for it dearly in some cases) and embarks on a dangerous journey with the attitude – May the best witch win.

Returning to Salem, her city of birth and the city that houses so many terrible childhood memories for her – several of which were so awful her mind repressed them as a coping mechanism – she reinvents herself yet again to be the adult product of the girl she was back then and begins her lie to try and draw out the bad guys (the bad guys being a new evil coven of witches who are dabbling in the darkest of the black arts and using Samantha’s previous family and coven as their stepping stone).

While there, she meets Anthony. Anthony is a young man running an Occult Museum and driven by the need to get vengeance on those who murdered his mother and avenge her death. He and Samantha have instant chemistry, but seeing as she is exactly what he has sworn to hate and destroy, and he is a constant reminder of everything she wants to forget, it’s definitely not a match made in heaven. Regardless, and despite the conflicts the two of them encounter along the way, they find a way to work together to try and bring down this rogue coven of evil witches and stop the murders.

One of the things that appealed to me most about this book was that it wasn’t easy to classify. It’s a murder mystery with urban fantasy, horror-thriller, and even a few paranormal romance aspects and that’s precisely why I fell in love with it. It was dark and dangerous and incredibly thrilling with tons of action, more intrigue than I knew what to do with, surprises around every corner, and psychological and theological undertones that made me as a reader think, which just immersed me into the story even further.

The Thirteenth Sacrifice was exactly my type of book and I am so incredibly happy that the Publisher decided to mail me a copy. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in the Witch Hunt series and I’m excited to check out more of Debbie’s work to see if the rest of her backlist is anything like this. If it is, I may have just found myself a new author to add to my list of favorites. As it stands, I definitely found a book to add to my “Best New Book Discoveries of the Year” list.

LITERAL ADDICTION gives The Thirteenth Sacrifice 5 Skulls and would recommend it to Dark Urban Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror-Thriller, and even Murder-Mystery lovers if you don’t mind a bit of paranormal thrown in to your whoedoneit story. This is definitely a book to check out! show less

RATING: 1.5 stars.

Warning: Contains some Spoilers!
When I first heard about this book, I thought the premise looked interesting: somehow vampires have taken over and most of the world is under their rule. A group of hunters trained by the Church at an Academy in Salamanca, Spain are one of the last hopes of Humankind.

I was really curious as how the vampires had gained power, because although it makes for an intriguing plot, it needs to be written carefully, otherwise it will look unrealistic. show more

Unfortunately it seemed pretty unrealistic. I could have bought the whole part where the vampires announced their existence and claimed to be friendly; setting the trap and all. But I just didn't think the following war was believable. Apparently despite their supposed superiority in number and all our explosive and fire-related weapons Humankind... sort of lost.

The authors explain that this happened in part, because governments decided to make wild accusations against each other instead of uniting. Oh and that soldiers weren't prepared to fight vampires. I mean... soldiers weren't but a bunch of teens with some training in Krav-Maga were? Again, not buying it.

Still, if the only problem was that the basic storyline and the world-building didn't ring true I wouldn't have minded. But there were other things that bothered me.

Like the beginning of the book, for example. "The Cursed Ones" opens with a wild action scene where the Salamanca hunters are fighting fiercely for their lives against some vampires. The main character, Jenn is the one describing the scene and telling us how much in luuurve she is with her hunter partner Antonio. I must admit, it did cross my mind then that this might not be the first book in the series since the main character was already a trained hunter and had a love interest. As I continued reading though, I understood this was in fact, book 1 but that the authors had decided to skip the whole training part and the characters falling in love part and go right into the fighting. Everything you know about these two subjects comes later in the form of flashbacks, which was kind of annoying because they broke the flow of the narrative.

Another thing that annoyed me were the characters. The majority of them were uninteresting and one-dimensional despite all the little flashback chapters they had about themselves and their dark, dark pasts sprinkled through the book. And Jenn... she was the most uninteresting of all. Oh wait, I think Antonio may be even worse... he was just so stereotypical it was almost painful to read about him (every time he said "Ay, mi amor" I wanted to gag). Just call him Edward Cullen or Patch or whatever.
The only character I found mildly interesting was the priest.

Plus, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the hunter team in this book and Buffy's group of friends in the show "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". There was a witch, a werewolf, a tortured vampire and his love interest (who was no slayer) and a couple of humans. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so. Actually the entire plot would fit nicely into a Buffy episode, except the characters of the TV show are so much better.

Overall I didn't care much for this book. It had weak world-building, almost no character development (not to mention the characters themselves were really annoying most of the time) and the story was not that original or interesting. The flashbacks in the middle of the normal events were irritating and as I said before, cut the flow of the narrative. There were some really well written fight scenes, but other than that this book failed to surprise or interest me in any way as it brings nothing new to the genre and the basic premise is badly explored in my opinion. Recommended only if you're a big fan of vampire books.

Note: I have received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads, but this in no way influences my review. show less

Bullet-speed action, taut tension, classic Viguie'

I'm half surprised I survived reading this latest installment of the Psalm 23 series. The angst, the fast paced action, the rapidly changing tide of foe vs. Friend was incredible. Did I say tears? I was hooked from the first sentence!

Jeremiah is being recalled as a former Mossad agent, a side of him he has always kept hidden from Cindy,afraid of her rejection. "In fact, his whole carefully constructed house of cards was threatening to fall show more down around him." What will happen to their relationship as Cindy begins to see Jeremiah for who he really is?

And I love the phrase Debbie uses :"plausible deniability" in referring to Detective Mark Walters. The ironic meaning of the phrase? "What he didn't know couldn't hurt any of them."

An incredible race to stop WW III from beginning as we see whether or not Cindy and Jeremiah may have a future together. Hurry October and book 10!! show less