Genre: romantic suspense

Review: Fury Brothers: Fury by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Fury Brothers: Fury by Anna HackettFury: A Fake Dating Workplace Romance (Fury Brothers Book 1) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Fury Brothers #1
Pages: 286
Published by Anna Hackett on September 3, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

I’m not looking for a hero, and definitely not a fake relationship with my new boss, nightclub owner Dante Fury—over six feet of dark, hot, and dangerous.
But he isn’t taking no for an answer.
The plan was to run, live under the radar, survive. My life’s been destroyed by some very bad people and everything I know is gone—career, friends, family. I thought I could hide as a bartender at New Orleans’ hottest new club, Ember.
I can’t trust anyone, but after I’m attacked, Dante is determined to play protector by claiming me as his. No one would dare touch the woman of one of the Fury brothers. Suddenly, I’m living at his place, and he’s touching me, kissing me, taking care of me…
Dante makes it very hard to remember this relationship isn’t real. He makes my heart race, but he’s way out of my league, and he’s protecting his own broken pieces.
Nothing this fake should feel this right.
The bad guys won’t give up, but I’m starting to think the biggest danger to me is Dante Fury.
The Fury fierce, loyal, and live by their own code. Five men who grew up in foster care and became brothers by choice. They vow to always have each other’s backs; no questions, no doubts, no hesitation. They protect their own…always.

My Review:

In spite of the subtitle, the ‘fake dating’ between Mila Clifton and Dante Fury doesn’t last very long at all because there is nothing fake about their attraction to each other even before they attempt to ‘fake date’.

The only people they are really ‘faking’ are each other, as Mila is on the run from some very bad people who have left a trail of dead bodies behind her in their pursuit of a woman who worked too hard and heard too much on one dark night she wishes she could get back.

Dante Fury doesn’t seem to believe in love – or at least doesn’t believe that it’s for him and his four brothers, men who survived foster care by sticking together and protecting themselves from anyone and everything.

Now the Fury Brothers protect their corner of New Orleans from anyone who thinks they can bring bad shit onto their turf. Cleaning up ALL of NOLA is WAY beyond even the Fury Brothers’ capacity, but keeping their own territory secure is right up their alley.

At first Dante does his level best to convince himself that he’s only looking after Mila because she’s ‘one of his’, a bartender who works at his nightclub, Ember. But he’s only fooling himself and it doesn’t take him long to realize it.

Mila, on the other hand, has seen every person she’s turned to while she’s been on the run get murdered, one after another. She trusts herself, and fears for anyone that her pursuers might believe she’s gotten close to. So she doesn’t.

Not until Dante Fury wraps his protection around her and refuses to let go – or to let her slink off into the night. No matter who or what stands in his way. Not even Mila herself.

Escape Rating B: It’s no secret that this author’s science fiction romances are my favorites, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get a lot of reading pleasure out of her contemporary, action-adventure romances, sometimes in spite of myself.

Fury is one of those ‘in spite of myself’ kinds of reads. Which means that any negatives I bring up are a ‘me’ thing and quite possibly not a ‘you’ thing.

Except maybe this first one. Fury is told in alternating first-person perspectives that switch between Mila Clifton and Dante Fury – which makes sense because at the beginning they aren’t on the same page with each other. Come to think of it, at the beginning they aren’t even on the same page as themselves!

But I didn’t really feel like I was in either of their heads, so the ‘I’ voice didn’t quite work for me. It’s also not the author’s usual style and I wasn’t expecting it. I DO like first-person narratives, even dual or dueling ones, as you’ll see in my review of Prophet later this week, but I couldn’t get into either Mila’s or Dante’s heads in spite of being, well, in their heads.

I do have to say, and this is completely a me thing, that being in Mila’s head was particularly uncomfortable because of the ‘heroine in jeopardy reacting by running’ trope isn’t one of my favorites, although I was grateful that this time it didn’t go all the way into the trope by having Mila on the run from a stalker or an abusive ex. Still, it makes for a reactive rather than a proactive heroine, and that’s just not my jam.

Which means I liked the whole thing a LOT better once Mila started standing up for herself and standing her ground. Especially because she was totally, completely and utterly in the right – it just took the Fury Brothers standing with her to get her to take back her life and I was absolutely there for that part.

Two things I do love about this series so far are the setting AND the vibe between the Fury Brothers. I always love a story set in New Orleans, and even the glimpse we get of the city in this first outing has me itching for more.

And the Fury Brothers themselves are fascinating, both in their origin story and in the way they’ve pulled together and pulled themselves up in spite of their rough starts in life. The whole concept of them creating a solidly bound family of choice and the way they maintain it and even add to it is fantastic, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of them.

Which means I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Keep, which is looking like it will be Colt Fury’s story about raising his niece while running away from the paperwork involved in his own business – along with the determined woman who will hunt him down and make him take care of ALL his business – including, most definitely, herself.

Review: Payback in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Payback in Death by J.D. RobbPayback in Death (In Death, #57) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thriller
Series: In Death #57
Pages: 368
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 5, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A retired colleague's suspicious death puts Lt. Eve Dallas on the case in Payback in Death, the electrifying new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author J.D. Robb.
Lt. Eve Dallas is just home from a long overdue vacation when she responds to a call of an unattended death. The victim is Martin Greenleaf, retired Internal Affairs Captain. At first glance, the scene appears to be suicide, but the closer Eve examines the body, the more suspicious she becomes.
An unlocked open window, a loving wife and family, a too-perfect suicide note—Eve's gut says it's a homicide. After all, Greenleaf put a lot of dirty cops away during his forty-seven years in Internal Affairs. It could very well be payback—and she will not rest until the case is closed.

My Review:

The case in Payback in Death is a fascinating one that could just as easily work in a contemporary police procedural as it does in their near-future world, because cases about ‘who watches the watchers’ are always relevant, and raise interesting questions about just how much of that watching is necessary and who watches the watchers who watch.

There’s a rabbit hole there that this story doesn’t have to go down, because retired NYPSD Internal Affairs captain Martin Greenleaf honored his badge and his service during a career spent on that often thankless watch.

Now he’s dead, and it’s Dallas’ job to stand for him. Because whoever killed him did a really poor job of faking his suicide. The man was murdered in his own home, and left for his wife to find. But fate intervened in the person of a detective that Greenleaf mentored. A detective who may have struck out once and badly with Dallas, but who knows she’ll bring her best to the case of the man who stood in for his father.

Which, in the end, is what this case turns out to be about. Father-figures, and the devastation they leave in their wake when they go down. Whether that happens in the line of duty – as it did for Martin Greenleaf in spite of his retirement – or whether it happens because someone like Greenleaf discovers that a man who should have at least been a hero to his family, was someone that those watchers not only watched, but ultimately discovered had feet of clay up to the knees.

Escape Rating B: At this point, I’m here to see how all my ‘book friends’ are doing after whatever happened in the previous book in the series (which in this case was Encore in Death). I just plain enjoy spending time with Dallas and Roarke’s ever-growing ‘family’ and am always happy to catch up with the gang. It doesn’t matter whether the particular case is all that interesting, and it doesn’t matter what kind of case it is. I just like these folks a lot and want to be sure they’re all still okay.

That being said, at 57 books and counting, the In Death series breaks down into three kinds of stories. First are the cases that are just cases – like the case in Payback in Death. It’s appropriately puzzling, the motives are twisted and the clues are deeply buried at first and convoluted to the end, and it’s an important case that requires that Dallas and company bring their “A” game to get it solved, but in the end it’s still just a case that gives the NYPSD a chance to prove they are the best at what they do – which they are.

The second kind of story are the ones where someone is threatening one or more members of Dallas and Roarke’s extended family. Those get messy. Always interesting, often revelatory about their pasts as well as their present, but those cases stick much closer to home and get more emotional, no matter how many of NYPSD’s finest get involved by the end.

And then there’s the third kind of story, which can dig itself into either of the above. The stories that are trips to the angst factory because they bring back the specters of either Roarke’s or Dallas’ horrifyingly terrible, thoroughly abusive childhoods. Those stories are always hard because I’ve come to care about all the characters a great deal and I hate seeing them suffer again in their present over the crap in their pasts.

This was a case that turned out to be just a case – no matter how much the perpetrator tried to make it more than that. And failed.

But it was still riveting and held my interest from the first page to the last because the story was every bit as relevant today as it is in Dallas’ time. Cops are human – and all of Dallas’ crew are certainly that, from Peabody’s pink coats to Reinecke’s eye-watering ties to Dallas’ own inability to make sense out of cliches and figures of speech – because they mostly don’t if you dissect the words.

Someone does need to watch the watchers, to police the police, to make sure that flawed human beings, because we are all flawed human beings including the police, don’t take the ability to use force and even deadly force to the point where it becomes perceived as the right to do so – because it isn’t.

Part of what made this work for me was the way that it went into the amount of painstaking work that was required to dig through everything that Greenleaf had been part of in a long career to see where the motives might be, no matter how deeply buried they were.

And that the investigation displayed yet again the reasons that Dallas and her squad are the best at what they do.

The part that cast a bit of a pall over the riveting case was that the ‘B’ plot of the story, the sidebar case of the now (former) detective who went off the rails and took a swing at Dallas, didn’t feel like it got either explained or resolved – or at least not to this reader’s satisfaction.

Which did not stop me from reading Payback in Death in a single sitting, as I often do with each, always much anticipated, entry in this series. Obviously, I’ll be back in Dallas’ early 2060s New York City for book 58(!), Random in Death, coming in January, 2024. I’m already full of anticipation!

Review: Secrets in the Dark by Heather Graham

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> book reviews
Review: Secrets in the Dark by Heather GrahamSecrets in the Dark: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 2) by Heather Graham
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #2
Pages: 336
Published by Mira on July 25, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Over a century after Jack, a new Ripper is on the loose.
Following in the footsteps of notorious serial murderer Jack the Ripper, a killer is stalking the streets of London. The self-dubbed Ripper King strikes at night, leaving a trail of eviscerated bodies in his wake. Fresh off a case with potential ties to the recent rash of killings, FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter are all too familiar with a slayer set to rule with a lethal fist. And they’ll stop at nothing to end his reign.
The killer’s MO may be nothing new, but his desire to be infamous makes him dangerous. Della and Mason know it’s only a matter of time before their investigation emboldens this new Ripper, forcing the agents to work quickly before another woman winds up dead. But now that the heat is on, their game of cat and mouse takes an unexpected turn, leading Della and Mason into a deadly trap they never saw coming…

My Review:

There are characters that never die. Some are fictional, as yesterday’s review of a brand new Sherlock Holmes pastiche proves. Some, however, are completely factual – or at least as much facts as are known – and they seem to have a life of their own.

Especially those who were into the business of killing in a really splashy way. Like Jack the Ripper. Who would have been a contemporary of, and might even have been identified by, the above mentioned Sherlock Holmes. If both of them had been factual, that is.

(If that idea appeals, take a look at either Dust and Shadow by Lyndsay Faye or Sherlock Holmes & the Ripper of Whitechapel. I digress.)

Secrets in the Dark, however, presents a modern-day Ripper going head to head (or heads) with a much different breed of detective – the new international branch of the Krewe of Hunters, codenamed Blackbird.

Blackbird, in the persons of FBI agents Mason Carter and Della Hamilton, forms the heart of an investigative team that includes agents seconded from Britain, France, Norway with connections to and sanctions from Interpol, to hunt down and apprehend serial killers crossing international borders to carry out their grisly ‘work’.

In the first riveting book in the Blackbird trilogy, Whispers at Dusk in addition to ‘getting the band together’ and Mason and Della getting romantically together, Blackbird brought the notorious ‘Vampire Killer’ to justice in the U.S.

Or so they believed.

But Stephan Dante, AKA the ‘Vampire Killer’, wasn’t just a serial killer – as frightening as that thought is. He was every bit as expert in finding others just as disaffected, disillusioned and downright psychotic as himself, and training them in his methods. Not just his methods of killing, but in his all-too-successful methods of denying the police even a scintilla of trace evidence for forensics to sink their investigative teeth into.

Now that the Vampire Killer is behind bars, one of his best (worst, most-adept, all-of-the-above dammit) apprentices has decided it’s his time to shine. Jack the Ripper is back, leaving a trail of bloody corpses in the back alleys of modern-day Whitechapel, taunting the police and the public by way of both old-fashioned letters and new-fangled social media. Promising a spree that will put his old mentor in the shade and make the original Jack’s gruesome trail seem downright tame in comparison.

Blackbird has the new Jack in their sights, just as they did his old teacher. They’re getting closer than he believes – in spite of his ability to hide in plain sight and follow their every move.

Escape Rating B+: This was a bit of the right book at the right time. I did fall straight into the story because I already knew the characters and the premise after the first book, Whispers at Dusk, and I did find it a compelling read, but I did have a couple of niggles along the way, which I’ll get to in a minute.

First, and not a niggle at all, you do not need to have read the entire Krewe of Hunters series from which this is a spinoff to get into Blackbird. I’m certain of this because I haven’t. By the nature of the team and the way they work with local police liaisons, there’s always a natural opportunity to give any newbies, whether in story or reading the story, to get caught up enough to make it work.

I think one probably does need to read the first Blackbird book, Whispers at Dusk, because the events and circumstances follow directly on from Whispers, and Whispers has done the heavy-lifting of getting the team together and putting Mason and Della into both their working AND their romantic partnership.

The idea of someone attempting to recreate the historical Ripper killings, whether by location or method or both, is neither new nor even completely fictional. The Yorkshire Ripper, AKA Peter Sutcliffe, was clearly a more northerly copycat who operated between 1975 and 1980. Not long ago at all.

But the Ripper King of the Blackbird Trilogy is thankfully fictional – and also totally out of his gourd. The reader does get to take a few trips into his head – and I’d rather have skipped those bits. I read this kind of suspense to see the competent team catch the killer so that part wasn’t my cuppa. It wasn’t too much or too far over the top, but I’d have enjoyed the book more without.

I also wish the killer hadn’t focused on Della exactly the way that his mentor did. I also wish the team had at least one more female agent on it. I can’t put my finger on why, but it bothers me that there don’t seem to be any other female agents except for background characters.

(I recognize that’s a me thing and may not be a you thing.)

So I liked this as much as I did the first book in the Blackbird Trilogy, Whispers at Dusk, and I certainly got into it every bit as fast and stayed stuck in it just as hard to the very end. More than enough that I’m looking forward to see this case get wrapped up in Cursed at Dawn later this month!

Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather Graham

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: Whispers at Dusk by Heather GrahamWhispers at Dusk: A Novel (The Blackbird Trilogy, 1) by Heather Graham
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense, thriller
Series: Blackbird Trilogy #1
Pages: 320
Published by Mira on June 27, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

When darkness falls, there’s nowhere to hide.
Four bodies have been discovered along Europe’s riverbanks, placed with care—and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird, an international offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters. If you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.
The pair travel to Norway, where the shadowy forests of Lillehammer reveal a gruesome scene. The killer is thirsty for more victims, and the bloodless trail soon leads Della and Mason to a group that believes drinking blood is the key to immortality. To catch the culprit of such an intimate crime, the agents will have to get close. Mason’s already lost one partner; he’s not ready to risk Della as bait. But sometimes justice requires a sacrifice…

My Review:

Bram Stoker used every myth and legend of blood-drinking ghouls – and there were plenty of them – and added just a pinch of history (and a tiny pinch at that) to create his legendary blood-sucking monster, Count Dracula.

The vampire killer that the latest members of the Krewe of Hunters are chasing, on the other hand, just cribbed off of Hollywood to create his own version of that legendary villain. Which does not make him any less frightening or any less of a monster.

Perhaps even a bit more so, as he seems to have all the mesmerizing charm of those movie villains, as well as an uncanny ability to choose “apprentices” who can be persuaded to carry on his work with just the right promises of infamy and immortality couched in cult-like justification.

But this serial killer is absolutely not a “real” vampire – even if he is a blood-sucking fiend. He’s still only human – and crazy like a fox.

The Krewe of Hunters is a very special unit of the FBI, as established in the first book in the long-running series, Phantom Evil. As part of the FBI, the Krewe operates in the United States, based out of New Orleans. But this wannabe vampire killer is operating in Europe. Mostly. So far. But not for long.

With murders attributed to this madman scattered from London to Paris to Lillehammer in Norway – when this story begins – Interpol and the various local police agencies are in the hunt up to their necks – so to speak – when the FBI assigns two new members of the Krewe to the international team hunting the killer.

Or killers.

Although the Krewe often deals with supernatural crimes, there isn’t anything woo-woo about the vampire killer – no matter his method of draining the blood of his victims. But that doesn’t mean that the special abilities that the Krewe’s members have won’t come to excellent use in this hunt.

Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter, both new to the Krewe, are able to see – and speak to – ghosts. A talent that is going to help them catch this killer before any more of his victims join the dead.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this up because I was looking for something with more of a romantic suspense vibe, I had vague memories of having read at least a few of the early books in the Krewe of Hunters series, and this looked like a good place to jump back in.

And so it proved.

The Krewe of Hunters series is 38 books and counting, and I’ll admit I didn’t feel like starting back near the beginning. At least not right now, although I certainly liked this more than enough for the series to go into my comfort reads rotation. But I don’t remember any more of the setup than is provided in this first book in the new Blackbird subseries, so you don’t need to be familiar with the Krewe to start here.

Whispers at Dusk struck me as a combination of Jayne Ann Krentz’ contemporary entries in her Arcane Society/Harmony series, as the team has a mix of psychic or other special talents which are useful to solving the case without necessarily being integral to it. The quick flash and hot burn of the romance between Della and Mason also has a similar vibe to the romances in that series. At the same time it blends the putting the band together and police procedural aspects of Andrea Kane’s Forensic Instincts series (another series I need to get a round tuit to get back to!)

The case in this one is taut and chilling. While no one – at least on the police side – is fool enough to believe there’s a real vampire, the idea that a serial killer has chosen to strike fear by mimicking one is bad enough. That the killer is training others in his methods and leaving a cult of killers in his wake is enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies, vampire or no.

What keeps the reader on the edge of their seat is the relentless pace of the story, as the killer leads the newly-formed team on a not-merry-at-all chase from one remote and historically significant location to another, from Lillehammer to the Orkneys to the swamps around Lake Pontchartrain, leaving clues and victims in their wake while dropping hints of their next kill and their intent to make Della their crowning achievement – either by turning her to their ‘dark side’ or leaving her drained corpse as a final monument to their twisted genius.

This one is a creeping, blood-sucking thrill ride from beginning to end. I will absolutely be back for the second installment in this suspenseful chase for next in this series of serial killers with in twist in Secrets in the Dark, coming next month!

Guest Review: Chef’s Choice by TJ Alexander

Posted on by Amy Daltry | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews> Guest Posts
Guest Review: Chef’s Choice by TJ AlexanderChef's Choice (Chef's Kiss, #2) by T.J. Alexander
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, queer romance, romantic suspense
Series: Chef's Kiss #2
Pages: 336
Published by Emily Bestler Books on May 30, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A fake dating arrangement turns to real love in this deliciously delightful queer rom-com from the author of the sweetly satisfying Chef’s Kiss.
When Luna O’Shea is unceremoniously fired from her frustrating office job, she tries to count her blessings: she’s a proud trans woman who has plenty of friends, a wonderful roommate, and a good life in New York City. But blessings don’t pay the bills.
Enter Jean-Pierre, a laissez-faire trans man and the heir to a huge culinary empire—which he’ll only inherit if he can jump through all the hoops his celebrity chef grandfather has placed in his path. First hoop: he needs a girlfriend, a role that Luna is happy to play…for the right price. She’s got rent to pay, after all! Second hoop: they both need to learn how to cook a series of elaborate, world-renowned family recipes to prove that Jean-Pierre is a worthy heir. Admittedly, Luna doesn’t even know how to crack an egg, but she’s not going to let that—or any pesky feelings for Jean-Pierre—stop her.
Another swoon-worthy and heartwarming queer love story from a charming new voice in romance.

(More chefs! More queer folk!  Now I just need the sci-fi. Marlene’s recommendation in a comment on my last post has been added to my reading list, so look for a review on that once conference season is over for me.)

Guest Review by Amy: The opening chapter of this book hit me like a shovel to the face; Luna O’Shea gets fired, abruptly, for no other apparent reason than for being transgender. This is something that is unfortunately common among gender non-conforming people in the United States, and  that sort of discrimination is not even prohibited  by law in much of the country. Having had a number of friends this has happened to, I found the chapter very triggering and unpleasant, and I had to put the book down and sleep on it, complete with nightmares of me being treated that way.  I was tempted to tell Marlene this was a “DNF,” a book that I simply could not finish. But I knew deep in my soul somewhere that author TJ Alexander would not do us dirty like that, and there was something good right behind that painful setup. Turns out, I was right, and I’m glad I kept reading. Once you’re past the rocks and shoals of that first chapter, there’s a lovely, fun story to be had here.

Escape Rating: A+. “Wealthy heir-apparent must appear to be in a relationship to inherit, so he gets a fake girlfriend” is a tried-and-true plot; the romance industry has made use of it for decades, and it’s a great venue for some really comedic scenes. TJ Alexander gives us a slight twist on it here; the wealthy young Frenchman Jean-Pierre isn’t simply an idling playboy, he’s also a transgender man, so there’s some family-acceptance issues in his life, too. His famous chef grandfather has set him a challenge:  recreate a pretentious, difficult nine-course meal that he is famous for, and he’s the heir. Fail, and he’s out of the will.  He needs a fast cover story for why he’s in New York, instead of talking to his (also famous chef) grandmother from the other side of the family, and transwoman Luna takes the bait – money, of course – and finds herself embroiled in family drama.  They’re going to take Papi’s challenge…but neither of them have a clue how to cook.

Our story begins a few months after the end of the companion story, Chef’s Kiss, and Simone and Ray figure in heavily, along with some of the other supporting cast from the earlier novel. I was delighted to see this, as I had really enjoyed the development of their relationship, and seeing what it looked like some months later as an established relationship was nice for me. It gave me a sort of Nora Roberts-esque wish that there was a third story to tell here somewhere, that could be plugged in around these two.

Meanwhile, back to the future in Chef’s Choice…as simply must happen, the not-couple is forced to act like a couple by circumstance way too early, when Luna’s mom shows up, drawn to town by the paparazzi pictures of her daughter with the young man, and a visit to Luna’s weekly friends-gathering at the local pub. Smooth, urbane Jean-Pierre handles all this with a healthy dose of Gallic stubbornness, but when Luna points out that their arrangement is little different from sex work, he loses his cool for a bit. There’s some back and forth – these two complicated people are trying really hard to make it look like they’re the perfect couple, and the challenges pile up fast.

The pair spend a weekend at his grandmother’s lavish condo being taught to cook by Simone and Ray, and we get some of the first hints that something more might be afoot for Luna and her “JP.”  Ray is non-binary, and when introduced, Jean-Pierre takes some time to make sure he has their pronouns right in both French and English. Luna finds that sort of caring unspeakably hot – she wants to “shove JP against the labeled shelves and grind like a freaking pepper mill.” That particular statement had me laughing loudly. The book is liberally garnished with fantastic one-liners and in-jokes like that, and it helps make the well-trodden plot a light, fun read, even through all the trials and tribulations.

I shan’t ruin the ending for you. In my review of Chef’s Kiss, I gigged the book slightly for its abrupt ending. I have no such complaint here; Jean-Pierre and Luna go to France for the cook-off, and the various threads of the story come together into a smooth, satisfying end. Along the way, Alexander grasps the question of “what makes a man, a man?” in their development of Jean-Pierre’s character, and touches on how gender non-conforming folks may struggle with the choice of how to interact with the world around them. Both questions are handled in a most gentle way, giving the reader space to consider these matters for themselves without struggle or pain.

Normally, in a book review, we don’t spend much time on the author’s acknowledgements, but this bit at the very end stuck out to me:

So if you’re reading this, you beautiful, powerful, tired trans person, please know that this was my love letter to you. I hope it brought you a little joy; you deserve every bit you can get.

Both of the tales in this series absolutely did. TJ, if you ever read this: thank you, from the bottom of my non-binary transgender heart.

TJ Alexander writes with mandoline-sharp wit, a clever eye for details, and a deep understanding of queer life and culture. This work, like its predecessor, gets my strongest possible recommendation.

Review: Hex by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Hex by Anna HackettHex by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Sentinel Security #6
Pages: 256
Published by Anna Hackett on June 13, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

She’s the genius hacker known as Hex.
He’s a ghost—the deep-cover spy known only as Shade.
They generate a dangerous level of white-hot sparks, but he needs her help on a deadly mission.
Jet “Hex” Adler loves being a goddess of all thing tech. She provides her team at Sentinel Security with intel and comms, and she’s good at it. No, brilliant. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to be stuck in the office while her guys are in the field, but computers, tech, and drones are her thing. If only she had the same luck with men.
And that does not include a certain hot, cocky, annoying spy.
Cain aka Shade is dedicated to his country. He does the hard, dangerous work so others don’t have to. He came from nothing, he’s alone, unattached. A man like him has nothing to lose. For Cain, life is always about the mission. It can never be about a certain small, smart, feisty hacker.
But now he needs Jet for an important assignment to stop high-tech drone schematics falling into enemy hands.
Of course, Jet will do anything to help save the world…okay, not the entire world, but a lot of innocent lives. Even if it means going undercover with the man who knows how to push every one of her buttons. But as they work together, dodging danger and bad guys, their scorching attraction explodes…and Cain will realize that for the first time in his life, someone is more important to him than his mission.

My Review:

This last book in the Sentinel Security series has been teased – as has its heroine Jet “Hex” Adler – from the earliest days in the series when she, and we, were introduced to CIA undercover operative Shade, as he gave the occasional assist to his former CIA colleagues Killian “Steel” Hawke and Devyn “Hellfire” Hayden on their way to their HEA in Steel.

When her story opens, Hex is the only member of the Sentinel Security team who hasn’t found somebody to love. She’s been burned more than once by too many men who only seem to be interested in her for the ways they can change her, with Brandon the douche having been the worst of the lot.

Brandon left her psyche with a few scars, and left Hex with the uncompromised desire to find someone who will love her exactly as she is, smarts, sass, petite cuteness and everything else in her sometimes contradictory package.

She doesn’t think Cain Cavanaugh, AKA Shade, could possibly be that man. Which doesn’t explain why, in spite of his dark codename, he lights up her hormones every time they cross paths or even just exchange annoying texts.

But there’s a job to do, as there always is for Sentinel Security. And for once in her career, both with the CIA and now with Sentinel Security, Hex is going to be the one going undercover instead of staying safe and managing all the tech that keeps the rest of her team and found family as safe as she can make them.

She’s off to an international tech conference to exchange a stolen data chip for a high-level sting on the evil broker who plans to sell it to the highest – and equally evil – villain. With Shade as her partner keeping her safe from everyone who is out to get her – especially himself.

A job at which he is both not exactly successful and utterly unsuccessful at the same time. But that’s OK because Hex is perfectly capable of rescuing herself from the bad guys – and doesn’t feel any need whatsoever to protect herself from Shade.

Escape Rating A-: The previous book in this series, Excalibur, just wasn’t the tropes I was looking for, for reasons that I don’t need to get into here.

Very much, and very happily, on my other hand, Hex turned out to be EXACTLY what I was hoping for, with its badass hacker heroine who rescues herself, and the even more badass man who is certain that he’s got too much blood on his hands from too many dark places to be remotely worthy of her.

Of course, he’s right and wrong at the same time. He might not quite be worthy of her, and possibly no one is – I really loved Hex – but he is a worthy man and he’s what she wants and he should definitely know better than to stand in her way. It was terrific watching him figure that out – finally – so they could both take a chance on love. Just like the rest of the members of the Sentinel Security team have done through the course of the series.

Now that Killian Hawke (Steel) and his handpicked team have finally found their HEAs, the action shifts to the Fury Brothers in the author’s next action-adventure romance series, coming in September.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to her next science fiction romance (always my personal faves), Knighthunter, book 2 of the Oronis Knights series, coming OMG NEXT MONTH! Squee!

Review: The Bride Wore White by Amanda Quick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Bride Wore White by Amanda QuickThe Bride Wore White (Burning Cove, California, 7) by Amanda Quick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical romance, paranormal, romantic suspense
Series: Burning Cove #7
Pages: 316
Published by Berkley on May 2, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A psychic desperate to escape her destiny—and a killer—finds her future in the coastal town of Burning Cove in New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick’s latest novel.

Being Madame Ariadne, Psychic Dream Consultant, wasn’t Prudence Ryland’s ideal gig, but it paid well which was reason enough to do the work—until she realizes that her latest client intends to kill her. But Prudence, a master at reinvention, finds a new job and home as far away as possible and is finally able to relax—which turns out to be a big mistake. Letting her guard down means being kidnapped and drugged and waking up in a bloodstained wedding dress in the honeymoon suite next to a dead man. With the press outside the hotel, waiting with their cameras and police sirens in the distance, it’s obvious she’s being framed for the man’s murder. Prudence knows who is responsible, but will anyone believe her?

It doesn’t seem likely that rumored crime boss Luther Pell or his associate, Jack Wingate, believe her seemingly outrageous claims of being a target of a ruthless vendetta. In fact, Prudence is convinced that the mysterious Mr. Wingate believes her to be a fraud at best, and at worst: a murderer. And Jack Wingate does seem to be someone intimately familiar with violence, if going by his scarred face and grim expression. So no one is more shocked than Prudence when Jack says he’ll help her. Of course, his ideas for helping her involve using her as the bait for a killer, but Prudence feels oddly safe with Jack protecting her. But who will protect Prudence from her growing fascination with this enigma of a man?

My Review:

So much revenge is being served, in so many seriously chilling and chilled ways, that at first it seems impossible to determine who – or how many – are doing the serving. Even without using her powers, Prudence Ryland knows she’s in over her head.

Prudence makes her living as a psychic dream consultant, just as her grandmother did before her. She’s good at her job – even though she seldom uses her very real powers. After all, most people want the same things when they come to have their dreams analyzed. All it takes is knowledge of human nature to give it to them.

But Prudence’s last client – both for the day and for her life as Psychic Dream Consultant Madame Ariadne, is not in her office for a dream interpretation. He’s there to kill her. So she uses those powers that she definitely does have to disable him long enough to get the hell out of Dodge.

Only to reinvent herself in another small, coastal California town. As a research librarian. When she comes to in a hotel room, dressed in a formal bridal gown, covered in the blood of the dead man lying beside her, she recognizes that she needs a certain kind of very specialized help.

The help of someone who both accepts the supernatural community AND knows how to get things “fixed”. Prudence goes to Burning Cove California to just about throw herself on the mercy of Luther Pell, the owner of the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel and one of the central characters of both the place and the series that began with The Girl Who Knew Too Much.

Luther decides to kill two birds with one stone – along with solving the mystery. His friend and confidential agent, Jack Wingate, needs a case to solve to keep him from brooding on his recent betrayals and to help him with his groundbreaking work on criminal profiling. Prudence needs an investigator AND a bodyguard wrapped in one package, as she needs protection as well as someone to figure out who really is out to get her.

Jack is skeptical about Prudence’s claims of psychic abilities as well as her protestations of innocence in not one but two spectacular murders. He’s planning to profile her for his book. She’s trying to stay alive.

And Luther Pell has a reputation – not just for fixing problems – but for fixing up his clients and his agents into surprising happy-ever-afters. After they figure out whodunnit.

Escape Rating A-: Burning Cove has turned out to be a fascinating place. To the point where, when I get the next installment, I can’t resist sitting down with it immediately – and I’m caught up in it from the very first page. The Bride Wore White was no exception.

This series whips up a lot of disparate elements into an absolute froth of a story. I say froth both in the sense that it has a certain lightness in the way that the protagonists banter their way towards romance – if occasionally just a bit too quickly – and in the way that the tension gets whipped into a frothy fury as more and more motives, opportunities and suspects get added to the brew.

As a long time reader of this author under her many, many names (Amanda Quick, Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle) I particularly adore the way that each new series teases at events both past and present in everything connected to the Jayneverse. It’s not necessary to have read her connecting series to enjoy Burning Cove, but they are all oh-so-much-fun that once you’ve bitten into one you’ll be compelled to taste the rest!

What made this case so compelling was the way that the longer it went on the wilder and crazier things got. It’s clear at the beginning that someone is out to get Prudence, but as the story progresses the way it shifts from Prudence being at the center to Prudence being the means to someone else’s end changes the situation from something straightforward to something with twists and turns and wheels within wheels.

There’s a long game being played and it takes the reader and the investigators quite the chase to even begin to see the shape of that game and its purpose.

That Jack is working on something that will become the start of criminal profiling as we know it now added a bit of icing onto the cake. We may not know how the case ends, but we know what criminal profiling has become and his work grounded this paranormal story into the real in a surprisingly satisfying way.

Burning Cove as a place and a series, and The Bride Wore White in particular, have all the elements to mix spellbinding suspense, a satisfying mystery and a delightful romance into one delicious cocktail of a story.

I want another, so I’ll be waiting with that proverbial bated breath for her next suspenseful, paranormal, romantic adventure, whether in the past as Amanda Quick, in the present as Jayne Ann Krentz, or in the future as Jayne Castle. And it looks like that next adventure will be The Night Island, written as Jayne Ann Krentz, the second book in her Lost Night Files, coming in January 2024.

Review: Encore in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Review: Encore in Death by J.D. RobbEncore in Death (In Death, #56) by J.D. Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: futuristic, mystery, romantic suspense, suspense, thriller
Series: In Death #56
Pages: 384
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 7, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

It was a glittering event full of A-listers, hosted by Eliza Lane and Brant Fitzhugh, a celebrity couple who’d conquered both Hollywood and Broadway. And now Eve Dallas has made her entrance—but not as a guest. After raising a toast, Fitzhugh fell to the floor and died, with physical symptoms pointing to cyanide, and the police have crashed the party.
From all accounts, he wasn’t the kind of star who made enemies. Everyone loved him—even his ex-wife. And since the champagne cocktail that killed him was originally intended for Eliza, it’s possible she was the real target, with a recently fired assistant, a bitter rival, and an obsessed fan in the picture. With so many attendees, staff, and servers, Eve has her work cut out determining who committed murder in the middle of the crowd—and what was their motivation. As one who’s not fond of the spotlight herself, she dreads the media circus surrounding a case like this. All she wants is to figure out who’s truly innocent, and who’s only acting that way…

My Review:

This one is all about what Dallas refers to as ‘the marriage rules’. While that’s the way she thinks of them, they’re not exactly ‘rules’ and they’re not just about marriage. What she’s really thinking about are all the often little things about one’s life that change – or at least should – when another person becomes part of that life. It’s about acknowledging the effect that having another person deeply a part of your life and how things change as a result. It can be as simple as realizing that if you’re running late you need to text that person that you’ll miss dinner to understanding that you have to be present for things that are important to them and in all cases very much vice versa.

Figuring out what those ‘marriage rules’ are in her own marriage is a work in progress for Dallas. She expected to go through life alone – she certainly never expected to fall in love and get married to anyone, let alone to an ex-thief turned business mogul. All of which is pretty much the story of the entire In Death series starting with Naked in Death, 56(!) books ago and STILL counting.

In the context of Encore in Death, however, those marriage rules trip Dallas up. Not in regards to her own marriage, but in the way that she has come to see the world and the people in it.

When she’s called to a swanky party of Broadway and Hollywood glitterati at an even swankier penthouse apartment, both she – and we – are probably expecting something along the lines of rich people behaving badly until it gets someone killed. Dallas may be capable of setting aside her preconceived notions when it comes to investigating a murder scene, but the readers don’t have to.

But that’s not what the investigation turns up. The victim, Brant Fitzhugh, and his still-weeping widow Eliza Lane were the real Tinseltown fairy tale. They didn’t just pretend devotion – they truly were. And people didn’t just give lip service to the idea that Fitzhugh was a wonderful person – they meant it. No snide remarks, no catty asides, no equivocation. People really can’t imagine he had any enemies and Dallas’ investigation doesn’t uncover any.

There weren’t any money problems, there weren’t any financial shenanigans, both Fitzhugh and Lane were wealthy in their own rights so it wouldn’t have been about money and there was absolutely no extramarital hanky-panky on either side.

The widow, on the other hand, well, there were plenty of people who at the very least didn’t like her much. At all. If she were the corpse there would be plenty of suspects. Which is when, based on the evidence, it really starts to look like the literal poisoned chalice was meant for her and he was just drinking the wrong drink at the wrong time.

Dallas should be looking really closely at the widow. It’s textbook investigative procedure to look at everyone the victim was close to in search of their killer. After all, familiarity does breed contempt and there’s no one more familiar than a spouse or domestic partner. And that’s where those ‘marriage rules’ get just a bit in Dallas’ way.

Not that she hasn’t put plenty of widows and widowers behind bars for being the instrument of their late spouse’s becoming their late spouse, but in those cases there’s usually at least some inkling of trouble in not-exactly paradise. This time there’s nothing. Her bullshit detector is telling her that Lane really did love her husband and is truly bereft that he’s gone.

And that bullshit detector is totally, utterly correct. While leading Dallas and the investigation down the primrose path at the same time.

Escape Rating B: I was so very grateful to sink into the comfort of yet another absorbing case with Dallas and Roarke that I’m tempted to give this one all the stars because it was absolutely the right book at the right time for this reader, particularly after yesterday’s rant-fest of a book.

All things considered, however, this isn’t one of the great cases in Dallas’ career – not nearly as absorbing in itself as last year’s Faithless in Death for example, which was both terrific as a mystery/suspense story and as well as just showcasing how uber-competent Eve and her team are.

The problem, at least for this reader, with Encore in Death is that the motive for the initial murder feels like really weak sauce. All the crap that Dallas discovers when she finally starts digging in the right place showed a pattern that was considerably more interesting and diabolical, but the reason the initial murder happens and brings down the perpetrator’s whole lifelong house of cards was just a bit meh.

Not that it isn’t always good to see how Dallas and her whole team are doing, not that it isn’t always fun to visit that bullpen, and not that I’m not always happy to learn that Galahad the cat is still ruling the mansion that Roarke built.

It was also refreshing to read a murder mystery that doesn’t center on rich people behaving badly. While I do enjoy the schadenfreude of those mysteries, such as last week’s The Skeleton Key, too much of a good thing starts to get a bit stale.

All of that being said, I very much enjoyed my visit to Dallas and Roarke’s 2060s New York City, this isn’t the book I’d put in someone’s hands if I wanted to get them hooked on the series. For those of us who already are hooked, it’s a great reading time.

Dallas, Roarke and the gang will be back in September in Payback in Death. I absolutely plan to be there!

Review: Sentinel Security: Steel by Anna Hackett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews
Review: Sentinel Security: Steel by Anna HackettSteel (Sentinel Security #4) by Anna Hackett
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, contemporary romance, romantic suspense
Series: Sentinel Security #4
Pages: 272
Published by Anna Hackett on January 26, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads

His skills and ruthlessness made him a legend.

The dark, dangerous former spy.

Now the operative turned billionaire known as Steel collides with fiery agent Hellfire when they discover they’re both on the kill list of a deadly assassin.

CIA agent Devyn “Hellfire” Hayden came from nothing and made herself into one of the CIA’s best deep-cover agents. She’s dedicated to her country. She’s always on the move. She’s a loner. Just the way she likes it. Letting people close is a weakness and she’ll never be weak again.

But when she finds herself under attack by an assassin targeting the world’s best intelligence agents, it sends her straight into the path of the only man who tempts her. The dark, lethal Killian “Steel” Hawke.

Killian Hawke rose through the ranks of the CIA, and knows his name is whispered in fear by his enemies. But when his sister needed him, he left and started Sentinel Security. He protects all those he considers his: his sister, his friends, his employees, and his clients.

But there is one stubborn redhead he also wants to claim.

As Devyn and Killian work together to unmask the assassin hunting them, they are forced to confront their white-hot attraction and their violent need to protect each other. Killian is tired of dancing around what he feels for her. Now that she’s in danger, he’ll do whatever it takes to make her safe, claim her heart, and possess her soul.

My Review:

Lovers of the Sentinel Security series have been teased with the inevitability of this story from the very beginning of the series, every bit as much as Killian “Steel” Hawke and Devyn “Hellfire” Hayden have been teasing each other from the first time they met. Back in the day when they were both among the CIA’s best agents.

But when they first laid eyes on each other, Hellfire was an agent on the rise, and Steel was all too aware that he was on the edge of burnout and that his days with the agency were numbered. He didn’t need the temptation, and she couldn’t afford the distraction. Or the other way around. Or both.

Definitely both.

So he turned away and went on his way, out of the CIA and into building his own top-flight, high-end, security business, Sentinel Security. While she continued her rise through the ranks of the CIA to become the best of the best – just as he once was. And still very much is, just in a slightly different and frequently adjacent sphere.

Every time they’ve run into each other – occasionally just about literally – since the Sentinel Security series began, they’ve drawn the kind of sparks off of each other that were bound to lead to one hell of a fire.

If they can just get out of their own ways. As long as they can get themselves out of the sights of an assassin who only thinks he can claim to be the best by taking down the best.

He thinks he can prove he’s in their league. Hellfire and Steel are about to show him just how much he’s not.

Escape Rating A-: First and foremost, I adore this author and her work and am always thrilled to have a new story in whichever series she happens to be working on.

Second, I always love the romance that features the leader of whatever group that series happens to be featuring, so I’ve been waiting for Killian’s story since the series began. (I’m just grateful I didn’t have to bite my nails through quite as many stories as in some of her previous series.)

Third, while I was always intending to read Steel this week I had one book absolutely disappointingly fail, so I was both thrilled and grateful to pick up Steel and dive right in. I knew I would enjoy it, but it turned out to be the perfect book at the perfect time.

Just as Killian Hawke turned out to be, not the perfect man but the perfect man for Hayden. Someone she could trust to have her back in a firefight, who would pull her up when she needed it instead of beating her down when she was already there. Someone who loved her and appreciated her for the kickass woman she was instead of trying to make her be less than in any way, shape or form.

Because she’s perfect for him just as she is. If she was anything less or anything different, she wouldn’t be the woman, the person he needed at his side.

But it isn’t ever going to be easy – and neither is this operation. Someone has a list of the top agents for every spy agency around the world and is planning to assassinate the “Top Ten” on the list. A list that Hellfire and Steel are both on.

The assassin has already eliminated two of their colleagues, had a go at a third, and now they are next. Which means that they are following the trail of their would-be assassin while he’s trying to pull them into his trap. The stakes are the highest, the tension is off the charts and the pages are turning as fast as the reader can flip them.

It’s a race to the finish; either his – or theirs. But together they can conquer anything. Even each other’s doubts, fears and demons. It’s a wild ride from beginning to end. Yet another terrific action adventure romance from an equally terrific author.

As always, I’m already looking forward to her next book, Knightmaster, the first in the Oronis Knights series. I’m always up for good science fiction romance and I know that’s just what I’ll get in March. And Sentinel Security will be back in April, and I’m sure it will be another pulse-pounding romantic adventure!

Review: Sleep No More by Jayne Ann Krentz

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> book reviews
Review: Sleep No More by Jayne Ann KrentzSleep No More by Jayne Ann Krentz
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: paranormal, romantic suspense
Series: Lost Night Files #1
Pages: 336
Published by Berkley Books on January 3, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Seven months ago, Pallas Llewellyn, Talia March, and Amelia Rivers were strangers, until their fateful stay at the Lucent Springs Hotel. An earthquake and a fire partially destroyed the hotel, but the women have no memory of their time there. Now close friends, the three women co-host a podcast called the Lost Night Files, where they investigate cold cases and hope to connect with others who may have had a similar experience to theirs—an experience that has somehow enhanced the psychic abilities already present in each woman.

After receiving a tip for their podcast, Pallas travels to the small college town of Carnelian, California, to explore an abandoned asylum. Shaken by the dark energy she feels in the building, she is rushing out when she’s stopped by a dark figure—who turns out to be the women's mysterious tipster.

Ambrose Drake is certain he’s a witness to a murder, but without a body, everyone thinks he’s having delusions caused by extreme sleep deprivation. But Ambrose is positive something terrible happened at the Carnelian Sleep Institute the night he was there. Unable to find proof on his own, he approaches Pallas for help, only for her to realize that Ambrose, too, has a lost night that he can’t remember—one that may be connected to Pallas. Pallas and Ambrose conduct their investigation using the podcast as a cover, and while the townsfolk are eager to share what they know, it turns out there are others who are not so happy about their questions—and someone is willing to kill to keep the truth from coming out.

My Review:

Our story begins before it begins. Seven months before, specifically. Three women, Pallas Llewellyn, Talia March and Amelia Rivers, complete strangers to each other, were all invited to the Lucent Springs Hotel for a meeting about restoring the old hotel in this quaint California town. They were woken in the morning – not by a wake up call or an alarm – but by an earthquake. There was hospital equipment all around them, the hotel was on fire, and not a single one of them had any memory of the evening before after entering the hotel.

Officials chalked it up to a girls’ night out party ending in a drunken blackout. But those three women knew that wasn’t the case. They had all undergone a traumatic experience, they all had transient global amnesia (yes, it really does exist) about the events, and they all had their various forms of ‘strong intuition’ ramped up to the point of being honest-to-goodness psychic powers.

They banded together to search for the truth about what happened to them, starting their podcast, The Lost Night Files, to investigate their own and other people’s experiences of having lost a night – or more – to an experience they can’t remember and can’t explain.

And all of their collective families are sure they’ve each gone a bit off the deep end – but they have each other.

Ambrose Drake looks into The Lost Night Files because his experience mirrors theirs. He went to a meeting, has no recollection of the entire night it was supposed to happen, woke up in the morning to discover there were no records of the people or organization that invited him. And his own ‘intuition’ suddenly ramped up to eleven. Alone, he was coping so badly that his family staged an intervention and sent him to have his resulting extreme insomnia studied at a sleep disorder clinic – where he believes he witnessed a murder.

Ambrose needs help, and Pallas Llewellyn and her friends are just the right people to help him. At least once Pallas and Ambrose get past their mutual distrust. After all, they’ve each dealt with plenty of crazies on their way to this rather precarious point in their lives. To survive, they’ll have to learn to trust each other.

Or they won’t survive at all.

Escape Rating A-: The fascinating thing about this very fun read is that it is very much a three-pronged story, and all those prongs come together to hold a rather lovely gem of a book.

The author’s trademark blend of paranormal vibes and psychic powers forms what initially seems like a backdrop to the whole thing. Ambrose, as well as Pallas and her friends, all have some sort of strong intuition that they have mostly kept to themselves – because in the 21st century people who claim to read auras or rebalance energies are generally considered crackpots.

And no one wants THAT on their resume.

(Long time readers of the ‘Jayneverse’ may wonder if this book links up to her vast, sprawling Arcane Society series. The answer is probably, yes, eventually, but at the moment that link is tangential. There’s a tiny, explicit reference to Burning Cove (series begins with The Girl Who Knew Too Much) but it’s a blink and you’ll miss it and doesn’t affect anything in the book in hand at this point.)

The second prong holding the gem is, of course, the slow-burning romance between Pallas and Ambrose. And it’s appropriately slow burn because they don’t initially trust each other one little bit. But they’re stuck together in a rather dangerous ‘foxhole’ and they have to develop that trust in order to, for one thing, just get through the night.

(There’s another form of amnesia, Korsakoff’s syndrome, that results from extremes of alcoholism or malnutrition. Ambrose is courting this version with a combination of insomnia and complete loss of appetite. Honestly, he’s a mess.)

But the third prong was the hook for me. As many vibes and auras surround Pallas and Ambrose, it really seems like the motives for everything that happens to them in the story itself are rather mundane criminal activities even if they are conducted at higher stakes than usual. It seems like the events that brought them to Carnelian California all revolve around people behaving badly because of money and then covering it up. Following the money is a tried and true investigative principle for damn good reasons, after all.

And just when you think that’s where the story is going – the bottom drops out and it all gets just so much bigger that I can’t wait to see where The Lost Night Files goes from here. Hopefully this time next year if not a bit sooner? But first we’ll be taking a trip back to Burning Cove this May in The Bride Wore White.