Mercedes Thompson, aka Mercy, is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy’s next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy’s connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water…

My thoughts…

This book follows Mercy, who is a one-of-a-kind coyote shifter. She was “adopted” by the alpha of all werewolves, Bran. So, she’s well aware of the otherworldly things that surround us on a daily basis. Which is something we are faced with a lot in this book. We meet goblins, fae, witches, vampires, demons… you name it. This world is so rich with interconnecting characters of all shapes, sizes, and AGES that it was all immersive. Mercy doesn’t just hang out at her shop. No, she’s all over the city meeting vampire queens and solving murder mysteries.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. I thought Mercy was a great character to read from. I enjoyed all the characters and even though they all have history, I never quite felt left out. At no point did this story drag or feel like it lost its way. Every scene had a purpose and built up to the bigger picture for the overall story arc.

This is most definitely a series I see myself continuing.

Once, Marella belonged to the sea.

She and her family were emissaries, not monsters, swimming the borders between sea and land, keeping peace between the merfolk and the human city of Rossaia. But when the humans turned on them, the mermaids sought salvation from The Stone Witch.

She kept her word, but she also damned them.

Now, Marella and her family exist trapped in stone at the heart of a dried-up city, freed only on the night of the new moon.

And with that freedom comes thirst. To survive, they must drink human blood before dawn seals them back into statues.

Garrett is living an unmoored life.

Looking for something to anchor him, he arrives in Rossaia haunted by emptiness. There, he joins the Fratelli di Sangue, an ancient brotherhood sworn to cleanse the city of the monsters haunting its streets.

Monsters like Marella.

When a chance encounter turns into a dangerous rescue on a moonless night, both hunter and hunted find their certainties unraveling. Drawn together by blood, secrets, and a forbidden pull neither can deny, they stand on opposite sides of a war older than memory, and to choose each other may mean betraying everything they believe in.

My thoughts…

Mermaid stories are not something I see all that often. So, when I heard about this book, I was excited to read it. I mean, mermaids that are cursed to become stone all but once a month, when they are released from their stone casings in order to drink the blood of humans to survive until the next new moon. Basically, cursed vampiric mermaids?! I was hooked.

The book starts out strong with the backstory of the merfolk and how they wound up cursed. Even though, for centuries, they had been encased in stone, nothing more than statues to everyone in the world, they are still alive inside. They can still see and feel everything that goes on around them. So, they are unfortunately fully aware of the time that passes. This part was really heart-wrenching to think about. It would be one thing if they just slept between the new moons, but they are stuck in this stasis of watching life go on around them while they remain frozen and helpless. Learning about their history may have been the best part of this story.

As for the main characters, I liked Marella. Sure, she was cutthroat and didn’t seem to have remorse for killing people, but she did what she had to do. She found the predators in the area and took care of them. So, while killing is obviously a big no-no, at least she was killing with morals… right? Then you have Garrett, who is essentially in Italy to find and exterminate her kind. Not too much goes into him or his “brotherhood,” other than the fact that they will take anyone who signs up to help exterminate the monsters of the city. From the sounds of it, Garrett is just there because he needed a change of scenery and was feeling like he was adrift in life. So, his heart wasn’t really in it. Again, I didn’t really get a good sense of Garrett, even though the book was half in his POV.

I liked that the romance wasn’t all-encompassing when it came to the story. The stone witch tells her that she needs to make a man fall in love with her in a week, and I got nervous. Lust? Sure, that can be done. But actual, real love… people do not fall in love in 7 days. So, I was a bit worried when this became the answer to breaking their centuries-long curse. Thankfully, that didn’t become a thing.

One thing I did have a little bit of an issue with was missing pieces throughout the book. There’s this brotherhood, but you only ever see Garrett and his partner, Lucas. They all live together, and yet you never see them. At one point, Marella spots one of her sisters, but it’s not during the new moon. This isn’t really explained. I wanted to know how and why she’s running around, and whether or not her other family members are “awake.” What deal did she make with the stone witch, and HOW did she make a deal if she was in stone? Or did she make this deal during the last new moon and has been running around this entire time? Then there is a part in the book where a person is completely relocated from a basement location to being out on the street. No explanation. Just a “I don’t know how I got here” response.

Now, I get it. I can suspend my sense of reality and believe that there are not only mermaids, but that statues could, in fact, be vampiric creatures that were cursed to stone by an evil witch. However, what I cannot fall in line with is people popping about in random locations without any sort of explanation. Apparently, that is where I draw the line.

This was a quick and enjoyable read. I liked the spin on mermaids that the author took. I liked their writing style and the way they told the story. For a novella, it had a lot of meat to the story that I wasn’t expecting. I could have easily sat down and read another 200 pages without blinking. I think, for what the author was setting up in this book, it would have been better as a full-length novel. There were a lot of pieces being juggled and not enough time to fully execute it all.

This post is linked to Sunday Post, Staking the Shelves, Sunday Salon, and #IMWAYR

September was probably one of the better months of the year for me.

Life slowed down a bit. I was no longer going to the vet every week with my rescue foster. A cat, whom I’ve had since March and has needed a lot of hands on care. Since his health finally started to improve and we got into a rhythm,  I was able to relax a bit more.

September is my birthday month, so I celebrated turning 40. Gah! That is still something I’m coming to terms with. I don’t feel 40, and I definitely don’t think that I act 40. I don’t even have my crap together most days. I still feel like a teenager playing house with my boyfriend. Anyway, I would like to say I did something awesome for my birthday, but I didn’t. I went to a nearby coffee shop, and enjoyed a cup of coffee and then the Mister and I got conveyor belt sushi for dinner. I’m a real hard girl to please. Ha! Even though my actual birthday was low-key, I did decide to treat myself all month. And by that I mean I said yes to a bunch of things.

One of the women I know out here asked me to go to the beach with her and some friends. Usually groups of people I don’t know isn’t my thing, but I told myself to soak in the month. So, I said yes and got to experience a gorgeous beach that I have never been to before.

My local area put on their annual eisa festival. Eisa is an Okinawan street procession where dancers move to the booming rhythms of taiko drums and the catchy tune of the three-stringed sanshin. It’s a celebration of Okinawan culture.

I also got to attend a local sanshin institute’s first recital. Other than a couple of them taking a deep breath before their performance, you would never know that they were performing in front of people for the first time. Min-yo is Okinawa’s traditional folk music, and it is everywhere here on the island. The heart of the performance is the sanshin which is this beautiful three-string lute that has this distinct, plucky, rhythmic sound (almost like a banjo, but deeper in it’s resonance). When you pair that with the soulful, almost chanting style of Min-yo vocals, you get a super raw, and emotional performance.
I wasn’t able to get any photos of the recital since no photos were allowed. However, the photo included is the institutes founder, who is a well-known artist here in Okinawa.

I’m really trying to get out an explore so that I don’t have any regrets when we do eventually have to leave Japan.

Currently Reading

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What are your favorite book from last month?

All Raewyn ever wanted was to go home.

After accidentally creating a portal to another realm, Raewyn finds herself trapped in a world she’s struggling to navigate. Desperate to find those with magic who can help her, she sets out on a dangerous journey to another town.

Unfortunately, on her travels, she learns there are bigger and scarier monsters than the Demons she knows of – and one of them won’t let her get away.

All Merikh ever wanted was to escape.

For a hundred and eighty years, Merikh has been hunting for a way off Earth. He doesn’t care who he has to eat, kill, or maim to get what he wants. So, when his prey ends up being a lost Elf, he realises this is his opportunity.

She’s prettier than any creature he’s ever seen, and so damn perfect that it’s impossible to resist her otherworldly lure.

But Merikh destroys everything he touches. Will he be able to overcome years of hatred and anger to allow himself to get close to her, or will he lose her in the process?

My thoughts…

In this installment, we are met with the original duskwalker created, and an elf. Merikh is by far the most intelligent duskwalker we’ve met. Having a duskwalker who is already well established and has full control over their emotions and reactions was a nice change of pace. If it weren’t for reminders of what he was, you would almost forget he was a duskwalker, and since Rae is blind, her POV doesn’t go into his appearance too much.

Unlike previous stories where the duskwalkers are trying to make a life with a human bride in the Veil, this story is more of a journey-based story. Since Rae was sucked through a portal from her realm and deposited on Earth, her whole goal is to find a way back to her home. Since Merikh also wants a change of scenery from this realm, he decides to help Rae on her mission with the understanding that he would get to go to her realm as well. So, the majority of the book is them trying to figure out how to make that happen.

With that said, I did feel like this story dragged on quite a bit. I felt like a lot of stuff could have been shortened or completely cut out, and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to the story. One thing that I did like was that we got some flashbacks from Merikh about who his “parents” are and what his life was like being the first of his kind. These flashbacks give you a sense of not only who he is, but also relay the fact that Merikh was kind of the guinea pig for his kind. Which, in the end, added a lot of depth to Merikh’s character.

This story dove more into duskwalker lore and world-building as a whole. We now have a better understanding of the beginning of the duskwalkers. It was an enjoyable read, but like I said, it felt drawn out in parts, and I found myself skimming at times or just putting the book down and walking away to take a break. I am curious where the next couple of books go since it involves the twin duskwalkers, but I think I will take a break from this series for a few months and revisit it.

Have you ever enjoyed a series but needed a break before continuing?

Previous reviews from the Duskwalker Brides series
A Soul to Keep
A Soul to Touch

Beautiful Brooke Winthrop, and brash Becca Dodge are known in Hollywood circles as the Queen B’s for their meteoric success. They are the host and producer of I Do or I Don’t, the number-one-rated reality television show in the country. It is a whirlwind courtship show that ends every episode at the altar where two people must decide, on live TV, whether they will say the words that will change the rest of their lives.

One unlucky bride says, “I do,” only to be murdered by the groom on their honeymoon. The distraught father of the bride holds Brooke and Becca accountable. He manages to kidnap them and produce his own internet show based on the format of their program. Brooke and Becca are run through the scenarios they put their couples through. They must use these brief moments to prove their innocence or be killed in the last episode.

Excerpt….

Meet Rob Edwards

The majority of Rob Edwards working life has been in the video and film production world, giving him ample experience with storytelling and the creative process. He has written throughout his career and has won national and international awards for his work.

He is now transforming his efforts to the page, rather than the screen.

Rob lives in the mid-Michigan area with his bride. Together they enjoy traveling, foodie adventures, wine tasting, reading, and generally being outdoors.

He currently works as a Media Development Specialist and teaches video post-production.

​Rob loves hearing from readers, so please feel free to contact him.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

There are a lot of books on my Goodreads TBR, but I know that I cannot realistically read them all in one season. So, I chose books that were either books I will be reading for the book clubs that I’m in, books I received for review purposes, books that I’m excited to read, and a few indie author purchases I’m excited to get in the mail. Each book cover will take you to the book’s page in case you want to read more about each book.

Darcy Moore is tired of death. Which would be fine and good … if she wasn’t a Grim Reaper. Determined to outrun her designation as the villain, Darcy decides she won’t be dragging her next assignment to the underworld. She’ll be saving him instead.

Unfortunately for Darcy, there’s a complication in her plan. Guardian Angel Gabriel Aetos doesn’t tolerate threats to his little corner of the world, and a Grim Reaper showing up at his bar is as deadly as it gets. But when he realizes Darcy is not as she seems, Gabriel must decide if he can trust his growing feelings or hold on to his long-standing grudge.

But magic doesn’t come without consequences. And the Department of Hauntings & Spirits will eventually come calling for their missing Reaper.

What happens when a romance author agrees to test romance tropes in virtual reality?

Following divorce number two, Zoe Woods is jaded, bitter, and unable to write her latest novel. For an author whose brand is all about finding true love, that’s kind of a problem.

Desperate to revive her romantic optimism, Zoe accepts an offer from an unlikely place to beta test virtual reality romance tropes. Unfortunately, Zoe jumps in too fast, and instead of a fun romp in virtual Romancelandia to rekindle her creativity, she finds one debacle after another.

Regretting her choices, Zoe realizes nothing is ever what it seems when it comes to love and romance and fantasy vs real world. The only thing she does know for sure is that virtual reality definitely bites.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed a handsome knight would come and rescue me from my wretched mother. He’d ride up on his white steed and break the curse I’ve been fated to carry since the day I was born.

Funny how things changed over time. How the fairy tale twisted into something far more crooked, darker than I ever imagined.

In reality, my knight is scarred and broken, living alone in a castle of bones that overlooks the sea. He isn’t searching for me. He never was.

Lucian Blackthorne is as cursed as I am, and equally shunned by the locals, the fishers of men, who believe him to be the devil in the flesh.

Perhaps he is, with the way his amber eyes draw me in, ignite me like an infernal blaze. And the sins he whispers in my ear are as wickedly intoxicating as the man himself.

Yet, his touch is heaven and his will is my weakness.

He calls us forbidden, an unsalvageable tragedy, with no happy end. Maybe we are. But in this story, he’s the one who needs saving.

Once, Marella belonged to the sea.

She and her family were emissaries, not monsters, swimming the borders between sea and land, keeping peace between the merfolk and the human city of Rossaia. But when the humans turned on them, the mermaids sought salvation from The Stone Witch.

She kept her word, but she also damned them.

Now, Marella and her family exist trapped in stone at the heart of a dried-up city, freed only on the night of the new moon.

And with that freedom comes thirst. To survive, they must drink human blood before dawn seals them back into statues.

Garrett is living an unmoored life.

Looking for something to anchor him, he arrives in Rossaia haunted by emptiness. There, he joins the Fratelli di Sangue, an ancient brotherhood sworn to cleanse the city of the monsters haunting its streets.

Monsters like Marella.

When a chance encounter turns into a dangerous rescue on a moonless night, both hunter and hunted find their certainties unraveling. Drawn together by blood, secrets, and a forbidden pull neither can deny, they stand on opposite sides of a war older than memory, and to choose each other may mean betraying everything they believe in.

Six roses. Six vials of blood. Six visits to a vampire who could be her salvation… or her damnation.

Lilith has been dying since the day she was born. But while she long ago came to terms with her own imminent death, the deaths of everyone she loves is an entirely different matter. As her town slowly withers in the clutches of a mysterious god-cursed illness, she takes matters into her own hands.

Desperate to find a cure, Lilith strikes a bargain with the only thing the gods hate even more than her village: a vampire, Vale. She offers him six roses in exchange for six vials of vampire blood—the one hope for her town’s salvation.

But when what begins as a simple transaction gradually becomes something more, Lilith is faced with a terrifying realization: It’s dangerous to wander into the clutches of a vampire… and in a place already suffering a god’s wrath, more dangerous still to fall in love with one.

In Saltwater Hollow, summer always feels temporary.

Tourists come and go. The boardwalk quiets after Labor Day. And eventually, everyone leaves.

Then Logan Hayes meets Merrick Calloway.

She’s chaos and kindness wrapped in ocean air and late-night laughter. He’s spent so long taking care of everyone else that he barely remembers how to want anything for himself anymore.

What begins as chance encounters around town slowly becomes something deeper — built through carnival nights, handwritten letters, quiet conversations, and the kind of love that feels inevitable long before either of them are ready to admit it.

But some stories become memories before we realize we’re living them.

Tender, nostalgic, and heartbreakingly human, Wildflower Summer is a story about first love, grief, healing, family, and the people who leave fingerprints on our hearts long after summer ends.

Sticks and stones may break their bones, but he’ll just resurrect them.

Four years ago, Sikras ‘Catseye’ Nikabod had it all: a beautiful wife, friends and family, and the endless luxuries that came with being the all-powerful necromancer to the queen.

Now, his brother-in-law is a walking corpse, he’s wanted for tax evasion, his oldest friend, Vessik, has slaughtered thousands of the queen’s people with a skeleton army, and his wife is dead. Sort of.

With the kingdom under threat, it’s only natural for the queen to task Sikras with the totally normal, not-at-all-cruel chore of brutally murdering his dearest friend. Sure. Great. It’s not like he already failed to stop Vessik’s reign of terror twice or anything.

Turns out, it’s hard to kill a monster when you can’t stop remembering the good man he used to be. Harder still when you’re pretty sure his descent into madness is kind of, sort of, hypothetically … all your fault.

Raise a glass. Raise the dead. Just don’t raise your hopes.

Evelyn Graymore is dead—murdered by one of Seattle’s most powerful men. Dumped into the waters of Washington’s Puget Sound, lost to the undertow of corruption, but instead of sinking into the abyss, Evie is reborn as a siren. She makes a bargain with Layne Murrows, an enigmatic man made of shadows who seemed to rise from darkness itself.

With nothing left to lose, Evie takes the offer of cursed power for the chance at revenge on Preston Willows, the man who murdered her. Armed with a deadly glamour, a voice that bends will, and the power to control water itself—Evie isn’t just a monster of the deep now, she’s a weapon. But everything comes with a cost, and the bargain’s rules are ironclad. She must feed on the darkness that festers in men’s hearts or die.

The catch? She can never fall in love, or the curse will slowly chip away at her lover’s mind and body, inevitably drowning them from the inside out. A small price to pay and not much of a concern for Evie—until she meets Ethan Ward, a paralegal who works right alongside Preston. Now, Evie must decide between the mortal who makes her feel like a human again, stoking the embers of forbidden love, and the enticing monster who created her.

Advertising executive Nick Wong enjoys living in Toronto. He loves late nights partying and taking women back to his penthouse. And so it is with great reluctance that he returns to his boring hometown of Mosquito Bay for Thanksgiving.

This year, however, is even worse than usual. His interfering parents and grandparents, frustrated with the lack of weddings in the family, have invited blind dates for him and his three siblings. Nick’s brother Greg has been set up with Lily Tseng, who just so happens to be Nick’s latest one-night stand, the one he can’t get out of his mind.

Although Nick has never been interested in settling down, Lily has him reconsidering. Perhaps he’s good for more than a single night of sex, dumplings, and bubble tea after all. But first, he has to get through this painful weekend with his family and convince her that she should be with him, not Greg…

Samantha Bevans is having the best sex of her life … but it’s not with her husband. Fortunately for her marriage, the affair is all in her mind. Or is it? As an empath, Sam senses other people’s emotions, and her connection to the beautiful man with the haunting eyes seems so real.

However, Sam has no time for her own emotional baggage with a serial killer loose in Pittsburgh. The killer is targeting dancers at a strip club where she used to bartend, back when drugs were the only cure for the torment her abilities caused. Now, as a member of a special task force, Sam uses her talents to sense the victims’ final memories. Just when she thought the case was complex enough, she discovers one of the victims saw her fantasy man before she died.

With each new revelation, Sam spirals more out of control. Death emotions call to her, wanting to share their secrets, but when she finally discovers the truth, will Sam have lost herself completely? Or will she figure out who she was all along?

What books are you most excited to read this fall?

A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king—while also fighting her growing desire for his fiery son—in this Norse-inspired fantasy romance from the bestselling author of The Bridge Kingdom series.

Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.

Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate.

Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.

My thoughts…

It’s not all that often that you come across Nordic Viking romances. So when my book club chose this book for the month, I was intrigued. It wasn’t something that was on my radar previously, but sounded like an amazing adventure.

However, this story just did not work for me. It started off strong with Freya standing up to her abusive husband, and fighting for her right to be a warrior rather than a housewife. I thought, this is going to be an epic story of battles and victory. Instead, it turned out to be more of a teenage angst situation. Freya spent a lot of time pining away at her new husband’s son. Which I know that sounds awful, but hear me out. The son is more her age, and her new husband is the age of her father. So, it’s not like she’s perving on a child or anything. With that said, I didn’t feel their connection. The author tells us that there’s this deep connection and attraction but it just didn’t click for me. They seemed like they would be good friends, but the romance aspect just wasn’t there. Not to mention, Bjorn thinks that she’s fully married to his father, as in consummated and all. So, lusting after his “step mom”, even if she was his age, just didn’t work for me.

I also did not care for Freya’s character. She walked all over, and yet is still loyal to those who cast her out. WHY? When I picture vikings, I do not picture someone groveling for the life of someone who cast them to their own torture and death. Blood does not make you a family, and I would think that this would be something that would be the way of Vikings. But alas, Freya sacrifices herself left and right for family members who would easily shoot an arrow through her heart than have to deal with hardships of their own. This character flaw drove me up a wall. This girl claims she wants to be a viking warrior but just could not stop sacrificing herself for others.

While this book started off strong, it quickly lost steam for me. It lacked that gritty Nordic Viking feel that I was hoping for. By the end of the book, I didn’t care about anyone or anything going on, I just wanted the story to be over. This honestly felt like it followed a recipe for the currently popular new adult spicy fantasy romance. It will be a book that I quickly forget about.

Welcome to the menagerie, and please, mind the fangs…Twenty-two-year-old Anna Carmichael is down on her luck. Even juggling three dead-end jobs, she’s struggling to keep herself and her ailing grandmother afloat. When she’s offered a position as caretaker for an eccentric rich man’s collection of exotic animals, she jumps at the opportunity despite the ominous nondisclosure agreement. The reason for all the secrecy is revealed when Anna discovers that the residents of Mars Mathis’s Mystical Menagerie aren’t exotic—they’re mythological.

Her boss’s chilling warnings leave no doubt—these creatures are his property, and he’ll protect them at any cost. Anna’s moral compass shatters as she befriends the very beings she’s meant to cage. And an unexpected but irresistible passion ignites with Chase, the enigmatic wolf, as powerful and protective as he is trapped. Caught between her unwavering loyalty to her grandmother, the menagerie’s deadly threats, and a love bound by iron bars, Anna must decide—what is she willing to sacrifice?

My thoughts…

This book started out great. It was dark, messed up, and everything a menagerie should be – especially one that specializes in mythological creatures. Intelligent creatures that know they were kidnapped and are being held against their will for the enjoyment of others.

The whole menagerie, and the way the owner liked to host fundraiser nights every month for rich people to come in, gawk, and sometimes have special interactions with the captives, left a bad taste in my mouth. However, that was why this was so good. I wasn’t supposed to forget that they were prisoners of someone who saw them as nothing more than creatures to own. They had families and lives that they were ripped away from when they were kidnapped. So, seeing this darker side really brought it all together and made me feel for everyone being held in that warehouse.

Now, with that said, the book started to lose its spark toward the end. It was as if the author stopped writing for a while, then picked it back up and forgot the tone she had set. What was once dark and uncomfortable was now light and heavy with romance.

Anna is practically getting it on with the werewolf in his enclosure. They’re whispering about being together forever. When they escape, they have this whole romantic tryst as if they aren’t on the run from a sadistic man who wouldn’t bat an eyelash at killing her and throwing the werewolf back in a cage.

So why are we acting like we have all the time in the world for romance when you need to be hustling?

See, that’s when the story started to lose me. It lost that dark spark for me. A menagerie isn’t supposed to be sparkles and little confetti hearts, and I felt like that’s what we got during the last third to quarter of the book.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

I had the amazing opportunity to attend the RT Book Lovers Convention before it ended, and it was probably the best experience I’ve ever had as a book blogger.

I loved sitting in on all the panels and listening to authors break down how they create their characters and build entire worlds with nothing but words. The mix of fun activities, like playing bingo and card games with other bloggers, readers, and authors, was a great way to break the ice and meet people.

Ava Wixx and I really hit it off, and I ended up hanging out with her and her author group quite a bit throughout the event (so there are definitely some repeat photos of all of us!). Darynda Jones was also really awesome. I only got to hang out with her once, when she was hosting a game event I took part in, but she was so down-to-earth and genuinely cool.

I met Rachel Marks and Merrie Destafano later on at an author event at a local bookstore. I had read an ARC of one of Merrie’s upcoming novels, so I was really excited to get the chance to meet her. She actually remembered that I was one of her ARC readers and took the time to chat with me. She even introduced me to Rachel, who was there promoting her new trilogy.

Looking back, the whole experience of the RT Book Lovers Convention was a one-in-a-lifetime moment for me. Getting to meet authors, connect with other readers and bloggers, and simply be surrounded by people who love books as much as I do made it an experience I’ll never forget.

It’s sad that the RT Book Lovers Convention is no longer a thing. The convention that is trying to replace it sounds like it’s less about connecting with each other and more about selling books, which just doesn’t feel quite the same. Hopefully, when I move back to the US, I’ll be able to attend another convention and, hopefully, see some familiar faces along the way.

 
Ava Wixx, Christina Lauren, Megan Mitcham, Brinda Berry, Ava Wixx, and Jen Crane.

Have you gotten to attend any book conventions or author events?

Cassie came to her sister’s destination wedding determined to survive the humiliation with a smile, a steady supply of champagne, and as little direct eye contact with the groom as possible. Watching her sister marry her ex was bad enough without every pitying glance in the room reminding her that everyone expected her to be gracious about it.

When the bride’s dog bolts through a forbidden hedge on the private side of the luxury resort, Cassie follows, desperate for a few minutes away from the reception. Instead, she stumbles into a moonlit ceremony that was never meant for human eyes and lands at the feet of a man who is far more dangerous than anyone in the wedding party.

Ian is the Alpha’s brother, the pack’s enforcer, and the one wolf everyone knows better than to provoke. He agreed to the ceremony out of duty, not desire, but the moment Cassie falls into the circle, something ancient and uncontrollable chooses for him. One bite later, Cassie is marked by a bond that should not exist and trapped in a world where humans are never supposed to know monsters are real.

Now her family believes she is recovering from a suspicious accident while Cassie is kept on the wolf side of the resort, caught between pack law, a mark that is changing beneath her skin, and Ian, whose protection is the only reason she is still alive and the clearest proof that she is not free. Cassie may have fallen into his world by accident, but surviving it will mean learning which monsters want her dead, which ones want her kept, and what it costs to belong to a man who never meant to claim her.

My thoughts…

This is not your normal shifter romance novel. There’s no insta-love or magical mate pull that leads to true love. Instead, this felt like a very realistic story about what might actually happen if a human was bitten and claimed by a werewolf.

As someone who loves shifter romance, it’s safe to say they usually follow the same story arc. However, that wasn’t the case with this story. The author took her time building the story. There are no quick-moving plot points or declarations of love and mates. Rather, this story marinates and simmers on low the entire time, giving the reader time to fully grasp the ramifications of what is happening.

Because the author didn’t rush the story, we’re given time to understand all the nuances of the characters. They aren’t simply one-dimensional, and while we do get Cassie and Ian’s POVs, the author doesn’t expect us to know everything at once, just like Cassie doesn’t know everything at once. This allows the story to build, layer by layer.

I really enjoyed the author’s raw style of writing. There were no paragraphs waxing poetic about the MMC’s physical appearance or lengthy descriptions of every tiny detail. The writing felt straightforward and focused on the story rather than dressing everything up.

I also enjoyed how the author managed to incorporate humor throughout the book. Between Cassie and her knack for using sarcasm as armor and Sava’s complete lack of concern for who she pisses off, I found myself smiling a lot throughout the book. Especially when Cassie and Sava would bounce their sarcasm off each other.

This is the first time I’ve read this author’s work, but it definitely won’t be the last. She took something that has been done hundreds, if not thousands, of times and created something completely her own.

I enjoyed every minute of this book. I found myself staying up late at night to read, then picking it up first thing in the morning before I even started my day.

Favorite quote…

“Marianne, your future son-in-law has the sexual discipline of a racoon in a dumpster.”