4.5 "New Allies?" Stars for the story and narration.

Please note this is book 2 in a series that must be read in chronological order. If you have not yet read or listened to book 1, Aurora Sky, please see my review for that title instead.

Northern Bites, book 2 in the Aurora Sky: Vampire Huntress Series, continues rights where book 1 leaves off. After a mission gone awry, Aurora, and her vampire hunting partner (Dante), are under probation. Moreover, and perhaps even worse from Aurora's perspective, they have a new informant they are forced to work with and who is none other than Valerie from the first book, who helped cause Aurora's break-up from her vampire boyfriend, Fane. Can this possibly be a recipe for vampire hunting success?

Further complicating matters, when the death of another vampire hunter agent (and a high school boy with a connection to Aurora) requires them to end their probation early and go to a mission in Sitka, they are also forced to work with Jared, a recruiter in their organization. As things begin to unravel, it becomes clear that there is more to Jared than first meets the eye, and not necessarily in a good way. Can the vampire hunting team complete their mission under such circumstances? Moreover, what secrets is Jared hiding, and what's his true agenda?

But not everything in Aurora's life in Northern Bites is work. There are also several developments in Aurora's love life. Even as she misses Fane and despairs over the fact that a relationship could never work between a vampire and vampire hunter anyway, the flirtatious tension between Aurora and Dante rise to a new level. Could we possibly have a love triangle?

Further complementing this intriguing YA PNR/UF series is Em Eldridge's satisfying and pleasing narration. Having already grown to enjoy her rendition of Aurora Sky and the other players in the Aurora Sky Vampire Hunter Series from book 1, it was easy to join right into where book 1 leaves off at the beginning of Northern Bites. Moreover, I truly appreciated the remarkable consistency that Ms. Eldridge maintained between the characters' voices that appear in both books. Additionally, I think Ms. Eldridge does a fabulous job of capturing the personalities of each character in her intonations. In Northern Bites I particularly liked her fun and yet somewhat mischievous portrayal of Valerie, who plays a much larger role in this book. I also enjoyed her voicing of Jared who also plays a larger role in this book (sounding appropriately mysterious and authoritative--just what is he up to?).

I can' wait to continue to hear Aurora's, and her cast of vampire and vampire hunting friends' story, in book 3, Bad Blood. I'm particularly looking forward to see which direction her love interest takes. Personally, I'm rooting for Fane, though the obstacles in their way are certainly of the "deadly" variety.

Source: Review copy provided for review purposes. ( )

In this second book in the series, Aurora is teamed up with her arch enemy and boyfriend stealer, Valarie. They go on assignment with creepy adult team leader, Jared. It seems like a pretty cut and dried mission, but Jared just does not seem right.

This book was tighter than the first. The story was more on the vampire hunting and less on the teen angst. Although, you really have to have some angst. It's a rule. I am really warming up to Aurora. She is turning out to be smarter and stronger than she seemed in the first book. But she still has a moral compass. And that is good and bad as you shall see. I've already started the next in the series. I am hooked. ( )

Can I just say how much I’ve missed the characters in Aurora Sky?? I mean seriously, I love the world Nikki Jefford has created in this series.

Aurora as usual is my favorite character. She’s determined, and does what she’s told so that maybe one day she can fulfill her goals. She didn’t ask for this life, but she makes the best of it. She’s made mistakes but owns up to them. She’s also shown that she can be seriously bad ass. I even came to like/appreciate Valerie, which is insane because I couldn’t stand her in the first installment. My love for Fane wavered. He was just too much of a jerk in Northern Bites. And Dante, oh Dante. I will always love his character. He’s so easy going, and fun loving. He’s a great character to love. He’s personable, and rolls with the punches. Noel was just an eh character for me. She did shock me with some of her actions.

Northern Bites is very fast paced. I finished it faster than I thought I would. There is danger lurking around every corner. We meet some new characters, and don’t full know if we can trust them or not. There’s some shady business going down with some folks. We also see sides of people that we never thought they would be capable of. We also get some sexy images. I mean seriously yummy. Especially one conversation between Dante and Aurora. It’s freaking awesome.

All in all, Northern Bites is an action packed booked, and I’m anxiously awaiting the next installment. Aurora is left with some decisions, and I have to know what she does next. ( )

Note: This is Book 2 in the series and probably wouldn’t work so well as a stand alone.

Aurora Sky returns to keep on kicking vampire butt! Well, she tries. Aurora is still in high school and still in training with the secret government group of vampire hunters. Her mentor Dante isn’t being much help, not with his flirting. Also, she gets to spend lots of time working with fellow vampire hunter Valerie, who she detests. Her ex-boyfriend Fane isn’t making things any easier either. Life is tough.

This book is mostly flirty silliness, dating woes, and fighting over boyfriends. There was a good dollop of this in Book 1 (Aurora Sky), but I feel this book got seconds dished out. I went into this book looking forward to seeing how Aurora fared in her continued training, what would happen between her and Fane, and basically looking forward to her evolving into a badass vampire slayer. Largely, those things didn’t happen because most of the book was caught up in these high school dating dramas. I suspect I was suppose to care about Aurora’s beef with fellow agent Valerie, but I didn’t particularly. Aurora still has feelings for Fane but Fane is moving on and not making it easy for Aurora. Then there is Aurora’s friend (and fellow agent) Noelle who later on muddies the waters and is obviously keeping secrets. Really, I just wanted to sit them all down and knock their heads together so we could move on with the real plot.

There’s a few action scenes here and there. There’s a few mysteries – a high school kid (Michael) goes missing, an agent (Krist) turns up dead, Aurora is having very odd cravings – but so little time is spent on these that I was left wanting more out of the book. There is some family drama that unfolds. I found those scenes interesting too as they added depth to Aurora’s character. She can’t simply check out and not be a part of her family; she’s forced to at least acknowledge the situation. So all these little good parts were stretched out painfully thin into something resembling a plot and then we have all this empty, repeating, predictable teen angst dating stuff as filler. I wanted more meat and less whip cream.

Then there is Dante’s character. In Book 1, he was something of a mentor. Here, he starts off as that but then this terribly flirtatious side of him comes out. It doesn’t really fit what we know about him and the change isn’t explained. Also, there’s a reveal late in the book about who may be behind the death of the agent, and when Aurora tries to chat with Dante about that, he blows her off. This also is not like him. So, of course one of two things is going on: either it’s poor character development or something drastic has happened to Dante behind the scenes that us readers are not privy to in this book. And that brings me to another point – nothing is resolved in this book. While this is a series, I do like some resolution for some of the plot points per book. That didn’t happen here.

Lastly, there were a ton of vampires mentioned in this book and I am sure most, if not all, were in Book 1. But there were no reminders for who most of these characters are. Really, for most of them, it was just a series of names that could be swapped out. Descriptors were few and far between. So, after a while I gave up trying to keep them straight. So, yeah, I kept hoping the book would get meatier, that the plot would strengthen, and it didn’t. There’s plenty here to intrigue, just not much to satisfy. I am not sure yet if I will continue with the series. I want answers, action, mystery, vampire slaying… but not teen angst in large quantities.

Narration: Em Eldridge did another good job as the voice of Aurora Sky. She has a young lady’s voice that can hold great emotion or become an angsty, flippant teen as the scene demands. Her other character voices were distinct and her male voices were believable. ( )

ABR's original Northern Bites audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Northern Bites: Vampire Hunter by Nikki Jefford is the second novel in the series called Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter. This book continues the story of Aurora, a young adult girl, who has been drafted by a secret government agency after her near death to fight vampires. In her final year of high school, Aurora must balance being sent off on dangerous missions to figure out who murdered one of their own teammates, her confusing romantic relationship with Fane and budding relationship with Dance as well as working with a new drama queen partner.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel. As in the first novel, this series has a unique take on vampires and vampire hunters, which relies on fatal diseases and blood types. The relationship between Aurora and government agents has become more defined as Aurora has grown into a somewhat knowledgeable agent involved in multiple missions. I thought that this lent well to a more defined story as the government missions started to move story forward more. Aurora’s relationships with all of the people in her life change a lot throughout the novel and independent of the vampire story, the themes of love and betrayal stand strong throughout the novel. The vampire hunting was not as fast paced in this novel as in the first. The focus seemed to be on developing the relationships between characters more than the excitement of the action. It also was focused on developing Aurora’s feelings toward being a vampire hunter and how it might impact those around her. In general, the vampire hunting portions of the novel seemed more to be for driving the story forward. I did find the information that was revealed through the mission to find the killers of the team member to be intriguing. At the end of the novel, the focus on the relationships between the characters paid off in an emotional event that lead to Aurora’s inadvertently being forced to shift into her role of vampire hunter to protect herself. I did not see the end of the novel coming and was surprised by the outcome, which is always nice. The end of the novel was abrupt, but left the promise of more to come in mending broken relationships between lovers and friends as well as the dangers of the job.

The narration by Em Eldridge was good. I find Aurora’s voice to be a little whiny, but in general the voicing for the characters was great. The production quality was good. I would recommend this novel to anyone who likes young adult fiction and vampire stories.

Audiobook provided for review by the author. ( )