Shea Berkley

This book morphed this series to a whole new level. In the first book, Stone Cold Dead, we were only given a glimpse into what has turned into the bigger picture in this book. The first book was about vampires but they were not the main characters. They are the evil beings that are being fought by 2 mortal brothers and an immortal cursed woman who was a bad ass. We were also introduced to two little girls they become guardians of when their mother is killed and the vampire queen wants them for nefarious purposes. In that book we briefly met billionaire Alden Caldwell who helped the di Taro brothers get the girls back from the evil vampire queen. We knew he had a strange connection to her but this book tells us of their history and why he has struggled for years to break free of her.

Alden is over 800 years old. He is also a werewolf and in this authors world werewolfs are under the control of vampires and their wills taken away. In 1150 AD Alden was a warrior who was turned into a werewolf against his will and then seduced and commanded by a powerful vampire named Juliana. For 800 years he has had to do things against his will. Now current day he wants to find a way to break the hold Juliana has over him and he decides to go to a psychologist to see if she can help him.

Poor Dr. Maya Kelbeck has no idea how her life would change by treating Alden. She thinks he is suffering from delusions but its not long before the evil that is his world is destroying hers. I really liked Maya’s character. She wasn’t overly bad ass and did have a few insecurities about herself but when things got rough she defiantly stepped up to the plate to join Alden in his quest to defeat Juliana.

About a 1/3 of a way into the book the older di Taro brother and the children he was training in his war against the vampires and demons showed up in the story. I didn’t realize how much of a part they would play in this book but its clear now that this series will be more of an ensemble cast and those two girls that were introduced in the first book are a lot more important than was first thought.

I can see this being a long running series if the author wanted. Each book doesn’t exactly end in a cliffhanger but its defiantly unfinished. I’m hooked into this world and cant wait for the next installment.
… (meer)

This novella was okay, but it really needed to be longer and more detailed so the reader could connect with the story and characters.

Anara, our main character, is a gargoyle (or something similar). So by day, Anara is perched on the top of a church watching the world go by. And by night, she hunts vampires. I like Anara, but I want to know more about her. She has lived for centuries - but we don't know anything other than she was cursed to turn to stone in the sun, she is lonely, and she fights vampires like a viking warrior princess. When two young girls are orphaned after a vampire attack, Anara approaches Ryan, a human vampire hunter. Anara and Ryan fall in major insta-love. Seriously, the L-word is being whipped out within a day or two. I liked Ryan - but I want to know more about him. We know more about his brother (Beau) than we do about Ryan, and Beau is only a small secondary character. I would have liked to learn more of the back story as to why Ryan and Beau are hunting vampires. The other two secondary characters, Sage and Baby, are very cute and angelic children characters. They were sweet enough - but I want to know why the vampires are hunting them. So they are innocent? How does that help the vampers? I got a little aggravated because I was only getting the surface of the story when I really wanted those deep waters.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. It was an okay start, but I am hoping for more out of the rest of the series.… (meer)

3 stars / 1 flame.

It has taken me forever to write this review because I just don't have much to say about the book. I hate when that happens. This was an okay read, but it was nothing special for me. I actually thought this was a serial as the first book was very short, so I was surprised that this book was more than double the length of the first.

We met our main character, Alden Caldwell, in [b:Stone Cold Dead|24679230|Dark Secrets Stone Cold Dead (Dark Secrets, #1)|Shea Berkley|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422154489s/24679230.jpg|44296247] where he was a mysterious character that helped out the vampire hunters in secret. We learn in this book that Alden is a werewolf who has been enslaved by a horrible vampire queen (Juliana) for centuries. I really liked Alden, he had that mysterious, damaged, filthy rich aspect going for him. However it was a little unbelievable that he would seek a psychologist in an attempt to break his supernatural compulsion to obey his master vampire. Anywho, he does and in comes Dr. Maya, who has no idea the supernatural world exists and doesn't believe that Alden is a werewolf (naturally). She learns that the boogie exists pretty quickly though, and then her and Alden are in a fight for their lives. This causes them to pair up with Beau and his gang of vamp-fighting kids, whom we met in [b:Stone Cold Dead|24679230|Dark Secrets Stone Cold Dead (Dark Secrets, #1)|Shea Berkley|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1422154489s/24679230.jpg|44296247]. Unfortunately I just hate hate hate Beau, like detest him. I don't think I would be able to read a book where he was the main character. So all of the parts of the story where he was featured, I didn't really care for. I also did not care for how the romance turned out, but I can't say more w/o giving away spoilers.

In sum, it was okay but I didn't really connect with the characters and I was hoping for a little more. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (meer)