Kevin Luong walks to the ocean’s edge with a broken heart. Remembering a legend his mother told him, he lets seven tears fall into the sea. “I just want one summer—one summer to be happy and in love.” Instead, he finds himself saving a mysterious boy from the Pacific—a boy who later shows up on his doorstep professing his love. What he doesn’t know is that Morgan is a selkie, drawn to answer Kevin’s wish. As they grow close, Morgan is caught between the dangers of the human world and his legacy in the selkie community to which he must return at summer’s end.
Chaos reigns in The Sleepless City, and it’s really beginning to piss Detective Jonas Forge off. He’s got inner demons to battle and a life to build with his new soul mate, Blair Turner. Nothing is going right, and he already feels the universe is conspiring against him when a turn of events he never saw coming flips his world upside down.
Hallucinations grip the town and everyone in it, threatening to tear their precariously built family apart, and the only way forward is to bare all to each other. This means Declan and Blair need to learn to accept one another. Lucas Coate has to move forward without ties to his werewolf pack and live a monogamous life with Declan.
But while Forge and Declan confront horrors from their shared past, Simon learns a terrible truth about vampires—one he couldn’t have imagined in his worst nightmares.
Review
Our boys have all mated, but are not necessarily “settled”. Forge and Blaire are still working on their trust issues and this book focuses on their relationship.
There’s another “mystery” to solve, this time involving a creature that causes paranormals to attack one another without provocation.
The creature attacks Forge, forcing him to reveal some “truths” he had hoped to keep to himself.
There is quite a bit of back history relayed, mostly from Declan about Forge’s early days and some about Declan’s turning, too.
There is a little bit of fun with the couples in general, but the focus is Blaire and Forge.
**
I liked this installment, though maybe a little less than the previous books. It was good to see everyone again, and lovely to see the relationship deepening between Forge and Blaire.
The mystery stuff is exciting and creative; I loved the new “powers” we get to see in Declan and Forge.
I’m a big romance fan and the focus in this book was still on the romance, but was maybe a bit more weighted to the mystery.
The writing was excellent and the world-building was extensive and compelling.
I’m not sure if this was the last installment – it could be, but there is room left for more – but it was a nice way to end, if it is.
I’ve enjoyed this series very much and recommend it to fans of paranormal romance.
Alec sat back in the chair and held in a sigh, feeling every bit the lab rat he’d become. Since he’d become a vampire a year ago, he’d been put through test after test, so each and every one of his unending list of talents could be explored and documented.
He’d agreed to this, and he knew it was the right thing to do, but in that very moment, he wished to be doing anything else.
And with talents for making errant thoughts an instant reality—like setting fire to sofas and making Xbox controllers explode in Eiji’s hand because he’d somehow won—it wasn’t a good frame of mind to be in.
He loved Jodis. He really did. She had become one of his best friends. But she’d also taken it upon herself to document his talents, and he’d just about had enough for one day. If replicating wasn’t a talent so frowned upon in the vampire world, he’d make a copy of himself to endure Jodis’ tests while he and Cronin hid out in their bedroom. He’d replicated himself a few times, experimentally of course, and found it too taxing on himself anyway.
“Can you do it again?” she asked, notepad and pen in hand.
Alec had found a certain talent he’d dubbed the chameleon, for obvious reasons, because he could make things change color. It was absurd, really, and probably of no better use than a party trick. But he could, if he concentrated, turn a red pen blue or a white shirt black. The talent could only manifest by touch, and it lasted only a few minutes before returning to its original color, but Jodis was rather intrigued.
Alec, on the other hand, had passed bored like it was standing still and was well on his way to irate. “Jodis, I’ve kinda had enough of this today.”
“Last one, I promise.”
For Alec, it wasn’t so much as reining in a temper anymore, where the most damage done was a cutting remark. Now it was keeping a lid on a few dozen talents that reacted poorly to anger. He only had to get really pissed off and a rage would barrel out of him like nuclear fallout, literally knocking humans and vampires off their feet. Or he could burst eardrums with a furious roar, or maybe he could turn them to stone, or dust. Or maybe, just maybe, he could rip an earthquake through the apartment so he didn’t have to do any more of these stupid fucking tests.
“Alec,” Eleanor cautioned from the next room.
“I wasn’t actually going to do that,” he replied petulantly. He knew Eleanor, with the gift of foresight, saw possible outcomes of decisions made, and that did nothing to quell his frustration. “Jesus, now my thoughts aren’t even my own.” Standing up, he snatched the purple notebook off the desk, holding it for half a second and slamming it back down. It was now black, as was every page inside it, and it was smoldering as though it almost caught fire.
Cronin was suddenly in front of him, a hand cupped to his face. “He’s had enough,” he said to Jodis, and they disappeared.
* * * *
As soon as Alec’s feet hit the soft earth, he took a deep breath of fresh air and reveled in the silence.
His life hadn’t exactly been quiet in the last twelve months.
He felt the warmth of Cronin’s hand in his, smelled the sweet aromas of heath and moss from both the vampire beside him and the cool air of the long-abandoned battlefield, and Alec exhaled loudly.
Cronin had somehow learned to quiet his mind a little and it gave Alec the silence he so desperately needed. In the last twelve months, Cronin had taken Alec on more time-outs than he could count. Knowing when he’d had enough and was reaching breaking point, Cronin would simply remove Alec from the situation, leaping him somewhere quiet where his mind could have some much needed solitude. But with a gentle squeeze of his hand, Cronin reassured him he was there.
“I’m sorry,” Alec said.
“Don’t apologize,” Cronin said adamantly. “I can’t begin to imagine your frustrations.”
“Jodis is only trying to help. I behaved badly.” He could very well speak words directly into Jodis’ mind and tell her privately that he was sorry. But he’d prefer not invade the thoughts of others, preferring to apologize in person.
“She understands,” Cronin said, trying to pacify him.
Alec sighed loudly and allowed the quiet to envelope him. “I love it here,” he said eventually.
The field at Dunadd, Scotland, had become a sanctuary for Alec. No voices in his head, no city of millions with flurrying thoughts unbidden through his mind, no politics of vampire councils, no meetings, no one hovering.
Just Cronin.
“It affords you a great privacy,” Cronin said. His Scottish accent and formal tone still made Alec smile. “Your talents as a vampire are a burdensome gift.”
Alec had learned very early on to block out the voices and thoughts of those around him, but living in a city of millions made it a constant effort, and his display of anger at Jodis just minutes ago bothered him. “These talents are a pain in my ass.”
Cronin laughed quietly. “Your control over them still astounds us all.”
“The control you keep talking about is a talent in itself. It’s like casting a net over a thousand different fish.” Alec sighed loudly. “I’ve told you that before.”
“I know. Though it amazes me still.” Cronin squeezed Alec’s hand again and looked out across the field of long grass to the line of trees that fronted the river. “Lie down with me.”
Cronin simply lay flat on his back in the middle of the field and when Alec lay down next to him, Cronin snatched up Alec’s hand again. And together in the mind-clearing silence, they watched the blanket of stars glide across the sky.
It was a clear autumn night in Scotland, cold and dark. Neither of those things impeded a vampire of course, and Alec would never tire of the simple changes he’d gone through when he became a vampire. It was the complex changes he was beginning to struggle with. The talents he’d been given made him unique: the only vampire ever to have all vampire talents, some he was still discovering a year after his change. It was these talents that made his life hectic, his obligations as the key to the vampire world that gave him a great responsibility, and as Cronin had said, it was becoming a great burden.
Alec loved that Cronin would leap them to the very field where his human life had ended. The old battlefield in Scotland was also where they’d first made love, where they came to talk, to be by themselves. Like now.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” Alec whispered, his anger and frustration from before almost gone. “I feel like I can breathe here.”
“Is that not what husbands do?” Cronin asked with a smile. “Save the other from the myriad of madness?”
“Husbands,” Alec said, bringing Cronin’s knuckles up to his lips and kissing them softly. “Now that is something I’ll never tire of.”
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About the author:
N.R. Walker is an Australian author, who loves her genre of gay romance.
She loves writing and spends far too much time doing it, but wouldn’t have it any other way.
She is many things; a mother, a wife, a sister, a writer. She has pretty, pretty boys who live in her head, who don’t let her sleep at night unless she gives them life with words.
She likes it when they do dirty, dirty things…but likes it even more when they fall in love.
She used to think having people in her head talking to her was weird, until one day she happened across other writers who told her it was normal.
She’s been writing ever since… Where to find the author: Website
Matthew Bruner is a bear shifter destined for greatness. Or so, that’s what he’s always been told. As the next in line to become alpha of his clan, Matthew’s days of singlehood are drawing to a close. Long since committed to a prearranged mating, Matthew finds himself feeling trapped and, worse, afraid. In a desperate attempt to prolong his freedom, Matthew flees his family’s ancestral home and heads to the nearest city. It’s there that he meets Ezra Tier, a tiger shifter with a bad streak the size of a mountain.
Ezra Tier has spent the better part of his life not giving a damn. He goes where he wants, does what he likes, and answers to no one. Leading a life as a globetrotting rogue has its perks, and for Ezra one of those perks has been the ability to pick up and move on whenever things get too complicated and messy. So when he encounters a simple mountain bear shifter with broad shoulders and a shy personality, it’s all Ezra can do to maintain his unattached persona.
When a familiar and dangerous presence shows up in search of Matthew to bring him home, Ezra must change his ways in order to keep his newfound love by his side. Failing that, Matthew will be forced to go through with his prearranged mating and Ezra will lose him forever. Can these two shifters from different worlds come together in time to save their budding relationship? Or will the experience leave their hearts stripped and bare?
Review
(From previous)
Matthew is a bear shifter whose clan has him slated to mate for political/business purposes. He runs away because he can’t mate a female and doesn’t want to be tied down to the family business anyway.
On his travels he meets Ezra, his destined mate, and a tiger. Ezra and all tigers are footloose and fancy free, so at first he fights the mating because he can’t see himself tied down to a mate, especially bears who like to build a den and stay in one place.
In the end there is a grand battle with the evil father and the two mates end up HEA.
**
This is a very short, free read on Kindle Unlimited. The sex is super hot and the story pretty sweet.
I enjoyed it for what it was, a light, fluffy, fun read.
Audio
I hadn’t heard a narration by Gus Klondike before but he was an excellent choice. He did a great job adding in emotion and differentiating the voices. I really enjoyed this narration and thought it was a great way to experience this book.
For as long as Lucas Coate can remember, werewolves have been taught to mistrust vampires. Lucas is an exception—he has close friends who are vampires. The werewolf pack in Flint—and their leader, Jacob Coate—have made it clear that Lucas’s association with vampires is barely tolerated, and another transgression will be his last. When Lucas finds out about the plague of werewolf deaths in the area, he wants to help even though his own life may already be in danger.
Declan has been away from Flint for ten years, but he isn’t surprised to learn that the internal politics of the Supernatural Council haven’t changed for the better. When a series of burglaries hit close to home soon after he arrives, Declan—a vampire and professional thief—is their prime suspect, although for once, he isn’t responsible. With the council keeping secrets, no one is safe. Time is running out, and for Lucas and Declan, everything is about to change.
Review
This is book three in the series and can be read alone, but really should be read in order in the series.
We’ve met Declan before – Forge’s longtime vampire lover. He’s a very old vampire, a thief, and a man of mystery.
Then there’s Lucas, the werewolf that doesn’t quite fit in with his pack but who has formed his own pack with his friends, the vampires – even though werewolves and vampires don’t mix!
Declan has been out of town for these last 10 years and when he returns he finds himself immediately drawn to Lucas. Lucas is equally attracted and both think the other might be “the one” but neither thinks the other feels anything but friendship.
When they finally admit they have feelings for one another their chemistry is explosive. They realize they are mates, despite the astronomical odds of such a pairing.
In the meantime – of course – there is another mystery to be solved (this time Declan is the accused) and a werewolf plague as well and a trickster is involved.
We get to see a bit of Blair and Forge, Simon and Ben and meet a new human PhD student, Ange.
**
Just as with books one and two the mystery and the life in Flint plays an important (central, really) role. Lucas and Declan’s romance is almost too easy and though it is interesting, there isn’t a lot of angst in their relationship.
Most of the drama is surrounding the mystery to be solved.
I think that this series is very well written. Both authors have given us terrifically well rounded MCs, well designed and clever mysteries and world building that is very thorough and interesting.
If you like a lot of mystery with your romance, some interesting twists on the werewolf/vampire mythos, and a little bit a dry humor – this is the series for you.
I have enjoyed this series so far and look forward to the audio version as they have all been excellent.
Since learning of his merman shifter heritage, Taren has begun building a life with Ian Dunaidh among the mainland Ea. But memories of his past life still haunt him, and as the threat of war with the hostile island merfolk looms ever closer, Taren fears he will lose Ian the same way he lost his beloved centuries before. Together they sail to the Gateway Islands in search of the fabled rune stone—a weapon of great power the Ea believe will protect them—and Odhrán, the pirate rumored to possess it.
After humans attack the Phantom, Taren finds himself washed up on an island, faced with a mysterious boy named Brynn who promises to lead him to Odhrán. But Taren isn’t sure if he can trust Brynn, and Odhrán is rumored to enslave Ea to protect his stronghold. Taren will have to put his life on the line to find his way back to Ian and attempt to recover the stone. Even if he does find it, his troubles are far from over: he and Ian are being stalked by an enemy who wants them dead at all costs.
Review
This is no book for the un-initiated! Though I feel you could read it as a standalone, I think you’d be confused and missing a lot!
Shira Anthony puts SO MUCH detail and description into these stories. Her most powerful weapon is her world-building. It is complete, full and gorgeous.
She is not afraid to give our guys their love story and then yank it from their feet a few times before letting them be happy, either.
From book one we know that Teran and Ian have a history far beyond this life-span. This story explores that history.
There are several new characters, Odhran being one – another pirate captain who shows Teran more about his past.
There is an epic – I mean EPIC – battle, some sadness and then some wonder.
If you are a fan of the series you won’t want to miss this installment and follow our Teran and Ian through their adventures.
Audio
Michael Stellman narrated book one and does another excellent job with book 2. He has such a pleasing voice at a great pace with a knack for emotion. He absolutely adds to the experience.
ABOUT: According to legend, when humankind is at its most desperate, the goddess Sirius will send three of the most powerful werewolf shifters ever created to save mankind. However, because they are so powerful, they will need a fourth to complete them, to calm them and help them reach their full potential.
Aden, a young were, has been his pack’s omega ever since, at the age of fifteen, he didn’t shift like everyone else. Caught, reviled, and tortured because of his empathic abilities, he knew on the night he was told to run as sport for the pack hunters that it would end in his death. What he didn’t know, however, was that on the same night he’d also meet the love of his life and a pathway to answers, because Aden is far more than just a pack omega.
What begins as a hunt soon becomes a new adventure as Aden discovers that he has not only one, but three destined mates, and his role as lover is far more than trivial. The fate of all humankind rests upon it.
REVIEW: I like shifter books, they’re among my favorites of the genre and I enjoyed this author’s other books so I decided to give this series a try. The book starts off a bit violent and I don’t care much for that all but in this case, it fits in with the situation; it sets the stage for the remainder of the story.
This also book also feature another couple of my favorite elements in M/M: Mpreg and multiple partners. I’ve only read multiple partner stories where three men were mentioned so I was curious as to how the dynamics of four men would work out.
There’s Aden, an omega wolf who is
The outcast of his pack for being unable to shift. His life was made a living hell by a psychotic alpha and the pack’s Gammas. Chased through the woods, Aden is convinced he’s going to die when he’s rescued by his mates, the powerful alpha Blaze, Connor and Darric. Together they work to heal Aden emotionally and physically while teaching him about the Sirius wolves, his empathic abilities and his part in their lives.
The rest of the story sorts of putter along until Aden is kidnapped again. Then there’s more violence until he’s rescued. There’s a storyline in there regarding wolves joining the military, a corrupt politician and finally the end.
I didn’t like this shifter book as much as I liked her other books, I just couldn’t connect with the characters and the violence, although not overly gratuitous still kind of turned me off. Although this was the case it was still written well.
Sequel to A Tooth for a Fang Leader Murders: Case Two
Five dead leaders, their bodies arranged in a pentagram. Treason, lies, and backstabbing. A make-believe affair that turns into a real mating.
Timothy Sands is a PBI counselor, half-fey, half-elf, with a secret crush on Herman Weiss, PBI director. As a new chapter is added to the Leader Murders, it is Weiss’s responsibility to investigate what seems an impossible-to-solve case. The other problem? Weiss is suffering from rages, and his only salvation lies in Tim’s emotional-grid-balancing skills. They only have to pretend to be a couple for Tim to use his talents, and he owes Weiss a big favor. Piece of cake, right?
The fey might be involved in the Leader Murders. Someone on the Council might be their ally, and another prominent PBI figure looks more and more suspicious as they investigate. The stakes are upped when Timothy’s father, the Fey King, threatens to leave the Council destitute if they don’t hand Timothy over to him. Weiss’s brilliant solution? Mating Timothy and forcing the Council into protecting him.
There’s only one small hitch in that plan: instead of protecting one, the Council might decide to get rid of two.
Review
Timothy has had a thing for Weiss for a long time. In fact his infatuation with Travis was because of the similarity to Weiss.
Weiss had a male lover once before, but it ended badly. Now he’s stuck in a loveless mating that is about to finally be over, but he has a mess to clean up before he can be happy.
Someone is using magic to make Weiss unstable and it is up to Tim to ground him and keep him alive long enough to solve the mystery and the murders.
In a huge bout of drama our two erstwhile lovers manage to save the day and find love.
**
I really wanted to love this book. I adored book one and was so excited for this to come out.
I never liked Weiss. Sure I understood him better, but he just kept feeling like a big ol’ jerk and he was never very nice to Tim.
Tim who should have been so strong ends up being a door mat and even though he survives all the trials by fire, I never felt like he was appreciated. At all.
The mystery/drama eclipsed the love story for me and took the attention away from what felt like a mediocre love affair at best.
I just never bonded with the couple as a couple and as a result found this book to be lacking.
The writing was fine as was the editing, and if you are looking for drama this is a good book. But if you want a sweet love story I’d keep looking.
Blurb
![CounselorAmongWolves[A]](https://i0.wp.com/kimichanexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CounselorAmongWolvesA.jpg?ssl=1)
