Hailey Turner

My favorite installment in the series yet. It’s full of a variety of types of action with a little more emphasis on the human political sphere and less on the work of the gods or fae than in prior books. The focus is on regaining the McGuffin–I mean, Morrigan’s Staff–and in this installment they end up traveling to England and France.

What I enjoy about this series is the wide mix of folk and mythology, vaguely integrated into the normal world. Coupled with the action, it often means show more that what might be expected with a typical werewolf/vampire/Fae urban fantasy will turn into something else as soon as it mixes in Odin, Fenir and Hermes, along with ghouls and gargoyles. (I think Turner’s world-building has come down to belief=existence, except the Fae? I’m sketchy on the details, but to be fair, I think she is as well.) At any rate, take the mythos mash-up and mix it with a gay male romance and it resets almost all my normal genre irritations into something fun and distracting.

At the slight risk of spoilers, one of the better things about this installment is that it does not involve Patrick going off by himself as a sacrifice/pawn in some obviously doomed ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy. I mean, who does that? Who fights a known, sizeable group of others and thinks, ‘oh, the best possible choice here is for me to go by myself.’ (By book five in the series, you should have figured out the answer to that question–someone who has self-esteem issues). Turner has found a new set of strategies for Patrick to use. Or maybe he’s finally becoming convinced he has some value? Oh, wait; cancel that. Patrick totally does that in a completely predictable scene. But aside from that one time, I mean; otherwise, it’s all different.

Perhaps along that note, the emotional growth of our leads continues, but this time it is as Jono faces his past. It’s one of the ways in which this feels set apart from other stories, not using misunderstanding to create artificial problems between the two as major plot points. Or, conversely, the ‘I’m-hiding-it-to-protect-you’ plot point, which also drives me bonkers (you can see why I don’t do well with most paranormal).

One disappointing note is that the comic relief from Wade, the adolescent dragon, isn’t working as well. Comments around his bottomless stomach are literally almost the same through the entire book with only the type of food changing. So although he serves his moments of amuse bouche (particularly with cultural foods and cats), he is not used as well as he could be.

At any rate, it was fun and far more distracting than I actually wanted–I had hoped to just read off and on between other projects, and ended up sitting down and finishing it in three big bites.

I'll be honest, the four stars is relative to the genre and candy-bar status: this is not fine dining. This is straight-up sugar rush. show less

As you might be able to tell from my categories, there's a bit of kitchen sink about this. Shifters, gods, demons, mages, and vampires in New York City. But Turner absolutely makes it work. I dove into this one right after finishing the first.

It reminds me of The Immortals by Jordanna Brodsky, only less angsty, a lot more action and a lot more interesting, perhaps because there is so much going on. But as I said, it works. It's a big-wide world, and magic is out there, policed by Paranormal show more Divisions of the government. Some magic stuff can stay in the community, but if it interferes with the normals, there's both public relations and criminal consequences. When a dead shifter body is discovered in a train station, usually an area protected by many and old layers of magic, Patrick is involved professionally, and Juno becomes involved personally.

As usually, there's a strong romance angle, but it's surprisingly grown-up for the genre, as Elena C. noted in a review of the first book. Pat and Juno each have history, but try and attack issues with faith and patience. It was something to see. I'd say with developments in this book, it actually feels like growth of a romantic partnership, as opposed to a more surface-relationship of the first book. I'm not sure which was more surprising, that it was maturing nicely, or that I found it so sweet. As always, I'll note Turner seems keen on including her requisite three explicit sex scenes. I'm kind of finding that funny. It's mostly integrated, but maybe a little not at times.

One of the other interesting things that is happening with this series is that as the relationship between Pat and Juno stabilizes, they are finding that others want to be included into their circle. Reminds me a bit of Kate and Curran in the Andrews' Kate Daniels series.

Overall, a fun series. I'm not a great judge here, but it's passing all the gut-sniff tests (it's a thing; trust me). Maybe I'll have to check in next year and see if it survives QB, but I think it will. show less

Another gloriously fun and exciting entry in the series. I’m going through these books like sunflower seeds.

This one especially did it for me since it has both an exciting highway chase with a lot of explosions (HELL YEAH) and fake boyfriends trope (there’s only one bed oh no what will they doooo). I’m living for this, honestly.

What I really like about these books is a low level of interpersonal drama – all the conflicts between characters are always dealt with swiftly by show more communicating, you know, like adults should. All the threats that our characters face stem strictly from the outside of their relationship and it’s what I’m craving right now in my romance.

Also, hey, Alexei actually speaks believable Russian! I mean, some of it is still clunky and weird or the case “it’s not the word I’d use in this situation”, but most of the language is digestible, so props to Turner for managing to pull that off. What I really can go without though is the Ukraine. It’s just Ukraine, c’mon, it’s not that hard to remember your own rules about the use of the definite article when it comes to countries.

But overall, immensely enjoyable. I’m off to devour the next one. show less

Patrick and Jono’s romance hits an exceptionally swoony stage, Wade is still my favorite, and I would gladly let every female character here step on me (yes, even the evil ones. Especially the evil ones).

No, but seriously, I was absolutely blown away by the third installment of this cracking series! Great worldbuilding with extensive use of mythology, excellent pacing, and amazing characters – all this makes for a stellar read.