Formats available: ebookGenre: Paranormal romance
Series: Frostbite, #3
Length: 151 pages
Publisher: Self-published
Date Released: January 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Tess Jennings’ life is in chaos. Her ghost lover, Kipp McGowen, vanished into the Netherworld without a trace. Now, she finds herself in White Castle, Louisiana, surrounded by the Animus—a secret society of the supernaturally gifted. To make matters
worse, they present her with an offer she cannot refuse.If she helps solve the murder of their Grand Master, they will assist her in saving Kipp. Soon, Tess will land herself lost in another mystery she doesn’t want. But she will have to trust her enemies to gain what she most desires—a life with Kipp.
Only problem? People are hiding secrets and dark pasts. Tess will soon discover that nothing is as it seems. She might want to save Kipp from his ghostly state, but someone has decided it’s better for her to join him…
My Review:
I didn’t want to start reading Stacey Kennedy’s Mystically Bound until after I got a copy of Eternally Devoted. I just knew Stacey was going to end this thing in another one of her diabolical cliffhangers, and I was right. I won’t spoil the ending regarding the nature of the cliffhanger, but I will say to save yourself the agony and if you like her Frostbite series, just get both books and save yourself the agony.
Mystically Bound picks up right where Demonically Tempted left off. Which was after one of those damnable cliffhangers. This series has to be read in order, so start with Supernaturally Kissed. And fair warning, it is impossible to talk about Mystically Bound without revealing details from the first two books. If you haven’t read them and don’t want spoilers for them, take a look at the reviews for Supernaturally Kissed here and/or Demonically Tempted here instead.
So Mystically Bound starts out with Tess in White Castle, Louisiana (no town should be named White Castle, I kept thinking of the little square hamburgers). She’s in White Castle because that’s where the Animus is, and they might be able to help her get Kipp’s spirit back into his body, providing she helps them first.
And providing she can locate Kipp’s spirit in the Netherworld. She knows exactly where his body is now. It’s in the hospital, in Memphis, in a coma. That’s why his ghost never acted like all the other ghosts.
Kipp’s not dead. Not yet, anyway.
But the former leader of the supernaturally gifted, a group known as the Animus, is dead. They need Tess to talk to Alexander’s ghost and find out who killed him. but it’s not quite that simple.
Nothing has been that simple since the day Kipp’s ghost drifted into her life.
Escape Rating B+: The Frostbite story as a whole is all about Tess’ relationship with Kipp. There isn’t a whole lot of Kipp in this book, so that’s kind of a downer.
It was all too easy to figure out who both of the “bad actors” were long before they were revealed in Eternally Devoted. One person’s motives were clearer than the other, but who they were was just a shade too obvious.
This may be me geeking out just a bit, but having the supernatural society named “the Animus” didn’t sound or feel right to me. My mind kept going to either the dictionary definition of animus or the old psychological concepts of anima and animus. Neither may have been meant, but both went to wrong contexts in my head.
Because I read Mystically Bound and Eternally Devoted back to back, the cliffhanger wasn’t as frustrating as it might have been. On the other hand, Mystically Bound felt like half a book. I enjoyed it, but not only did I know it wasn’t over, it felt like the first part of a two-part episode–the story didn’t feel finished.
I’m very glad I waited until the final book was out before I read this one.
But in celebration of April Fools’ Day, I’m holding my review of Eternally Devoted until Wednesday. It’s not up there with the cliffhanger that Stacey ended the book on, but it’s what I’ve got.