My first work by these authors.

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting when I decided, kind of randomly, to try this book. I even did something I had somewhat gotten out of the habit of doing – checking out the preview before starting/downloading. Read the first couple of pages and got sucked in immediately. There’s a kind of hypnotic quality to the writing that grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck and tugs them further and further along. Somewhere along the way this tugging lessons, and the reader is gently let to walk on their own four paws (I do not know why I pictured a mother cat carrying along a kitten, these be werewolves not cats).

One example of the hypnotic pull – The first and second chapters seem as if they move from one moment to another. Flow naturally together. A security guard is prowling around at night, gets caught up in a robbery, captures that guy, and has something magical happen to them. They are all shocked and trembling and confused. They curl up to eat some food and attempt to rest. Second chapter starts. She’s clocking in at work, apparently the next day but . . . . somewhere along the way I realized that this was a flashback. Probably around the point where the first chapter got repeated. I just now looked and no, there’s nothing to indicate ‘One week ago’ or anything like that. Just moving from one chapter to the next. This is one of those things that kind of messes with my mind and causes me to get all annoyed and angry like. Yet, I just shrugged, caught up in the hypnotic pull of the writing.

So. There was that. The writing was good. Interesting fantasy world overlaying the non-fantasy world. A world of vampires, werewolves, magic users, fae, and others who are ‘awake’ and then there are those who are not ‘awake’. Who travel the world refusing to know the truth. Looking grey and uncolorful. These would be the humans (and any unawaken creature who shares some human dna, like, say, werewolves (which are born in this world, not made – though they have to be awakened).

There’s this neat way that the ‘awake’ world and the ‘unawake’ world is shown in this book. When Dakota goes outside for the first time after being awoken she’s confused. It’s like the film Pleasantville (not mentioned in the book) where some people are in color, and others aren’t. Those not awake appear grey and without color. Those awake share two characteristics – they are in color and they have aura’s mostly unique to themselves. That’s also why Dakota’s attacked for the first time – she’s awoken now, and so others like say a Vampire, sees her as something interesting. And unprotected.

Before we go too far down the road of ‘vampire = evil’ it should be noted that only one seemed to be described that way. One of the magic users/mentalists Dakota encounters has a vampire boyfriend, and Dakota herself is circling a female vampire.

Did I not mention that yet? Well, until it actually matters, it didn’t matter. For most of the story the fact that Dakota is a lesbian doesn’t really matter. Sure, near the beginning she mentions being attracted to a certain female she meets, but then she also ‘checked out’ the man that woman was with (more in noticing what he looked like and that he appeared handsome, less in the drooling way she was checking out the woman). Of course at some point it does matter. I mean this is, in addition to being a fantasy, a lesbian romance. And that rears its head to sniff the air and bounce around. I appear to finding weird word choices and phrases. Odd that. I had a point. I think I lost the point before I successfully conveyed said point.

Right so, this is a fantasy. It mostly takes place in an urban setting (Knoxville Tennessee and, Nashville Tennessee, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and a moment or two in Dallas Texas), and takes place in a dwelling that may or may not be in a suburb/rural area (I forget now; just that it is in the mountains). Still, there’s a certain feel of being in a city, but the urbanness of the story doesn’t really seem to matter. So, should I call it an urban fantasy? Maybe. Paranormal activity occurs. Has a kind of different vibe though. Hmms. Well, um, it’s a fantasy that includes a bit of romance, a bit of lesbian stuff, mystery, magic, and . . . stuff.

This is a good solid great story. It just didn’t feel like a five star story. And I have no real idea why that might be. So, I’ll mark it down as a 4.5 story for now.

December 17 2015 ( )