Breaking Badger by Shelly Laurenston

 

It’s instinct that drives Finn Malone to rescue a bunch of hard battling honey badgers. The Siberian tiger shifter just can’t bear to see his fellow shifters harmed. But no way can Finn have a houseful of honey badgers when he also has two brothers with no patience. Things just go from bad to worse when the badgers rudely ejected from his home turn out to be the only ones who can help him solve a family tragedy. He’s just not sure he can even get back into the badgers’ good graces. Since badgers lack graces of any kind…

Mads knows her teammates aren’t about to forgive the cats that were so rude to them, but moody Finn isn’t so bad. And he’s cute! The badger part of her understands Finn’s burning need to avenge his father’s death—after all, vengeance is her favorite pastime. So Mads set about helping Finn settle his family’s score, which has its perks, since she gets to avoid her own family drama. Besides, fighting side by side with Finn is her kind of fun—especially when she can get in a hot and heavy snuggle with her very own growling, eye-rolling, and utterly irresistible kitty-cat…

 

Breaking Badger (The Honey Badger Chronicles, book four) by Shelly Laurenston

Start date: September 20, 2021

End date: September 26, 2021

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: graphic violence

I have been patiently awaiting the release of this book ever since I saw the teaser for it. I was a little nervous to see how Laurenston would continue the series considering the youngest MacKilligan sister is the 17-year-old Natalie Malone. Imagine my happiness when I realized the book followed one of Max MacKilligan’s basketball teammates instead. While waiting for this book to come out, I read the rest of the Pride series, so I was ready for those characters to make appearances in this book (which they did!).

Claimed by Rebecca Zanetti

A DARING RESCUE

Emma Paulsen is a geneticist driven by science. But she’s also a psychic, so when a dark, good-hearted vampire frees her from the clutches of the evil Kurjans, she realizes he must be the man who’s been haunting her dreams. But with a virus threatening vampires’ mates, Emma may discover a whole new meaning of “lovesick”. . .

A DEADLY DECISION

As King of the Realm, Dage Kayrs has learned to practice diplomacy. Still, it’s taken three hundred years to find his mate, so he’ll stop at nothing to protect her—even if it means turning his back on his own kind…

 

Claimed (Dark Protectors, book two) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: September 15, 2021

End date: September 19, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: intimate partner violence, child abuse

            I liked that this book had an actual plot unlike the last book in the series. Emma Paulsen and Cara Kayrs were captured by the Kurjans at the end of Fated. Cara is rescued, and then Emma is rescued offscreen. Claimed starts by showing what happened offscreen. Emma has been whisked off in a helicopter on her way to a Kurjan named Franco who wants to force her to be his mate. Dage teleports (because that’s a power that some vampires have in this series apparently) to Emma’s location and kills the Kurjans in the helicopter before teleporting again with Emma to an area not far from the helicopter crash site. From there, Emma is reunited with her sister and introduced to her new in-laws.

Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost

 

AN IMMORTAL WAR HAS BEEN BREWING IN THE DARKNESS…

AND NOW ONE WOMAN HAS STUMBLED INTO THE SHADOWS.

Chicago private investigator Kira Graceling should have just kept walking. But her sense of duty refused to let her ignore the moans of pain coming from inside a warehouse just before dawn. Suddenly she finds herself in a world she’s only imagined in her worst nightmares.

At the center is Mencheres, a breathtaking Master vampire who thought he’d seen it all. Then Kira appears—this fearless, beautiful…human who braved death to rescue him. Though he burns for her, keeping Kira in his world means risking her life. Yet sending her away is unthinkable.

But with danger closing in, Mencheres must choose either the woman he craves, or embracing the darkest magic to defeat an enemy bent on his eternal destruction.

 

Eternal Kiss of Darkness (Night Huntress World, book two) by Jeaniene Frost

Start date: September 10, 2021

End date: September 12, 2021

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: attempted suicide, sex trafficking

Dare I say I liked this book?

This is the second book in the Night Huntress World series, which is a spin-off of the Night Huntress series involving Cat and Bones. This takes place in the same world with most of the same characters. I hesitate to even call this series a spin-off. The first book, First Drop of Crimson, starred Denise and Spade, and this book features two entirely different characters. This “series” doesn’t create anything new, and at least the first book requires previous reading to understand who the characters are and any sort of context a reader would need. Since these books are about previously established characters in the Night Huntress series having side adventures, I’d be more willing to include them in that series in between the main books versus separating them into their own. 

First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost

 

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Night Huntress series comes a breathtaking new journey to the dark side of desire.

 

The night is not safe for mortals, Denise MacGregor knows all too well what lurks in the shadows—her best friend is half-vampire Cat Crawfield—and she has already lost more than the average human could bear. But her family’s past is wrapped in secrets and shrouded in darkness—and a demon shapeshifter has marked Denise as prey. Now her survival depends on an immortal who lusts for a taste of her.

He is Spade, a powerful, mysterious vampire who has walked the earth for centuries and is now duty-bound to protect this endangered, alluring human—even if it means destroying his own kind. Denise may arouse his deepest hungers, but Spade knows he must fight his urge to have her as they face the nightmare together . . .

 

First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, book one) by Jeaniene Frost

Start date: August 10, 2021

End date: August 12, 2021

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: sexual slavery, rape, miscarriage

After a night out with her cousin, Paul, turns into a deadly attack from an unknown, supernatural assailant who can turn from a dog into a man, Denise MacGregor wants to call Cat Crawfield in for reinforcements but finds she doesn’t have any current numbers for her best friend who recently traveled around the world running away from a pedophilic vampire (see my review of Destined for an Early Grave for more information). As a last result, Denise dials the number for Baron Charles DeMortimer, otherwise known as Spade, Cat’s husband Bones’s best friend and a man she hasn’t seen since he brutally murdered a man who threatened to rape her outside of a honky-tonk. Her disgust and fear of him are overwhelmed by her terror of whatever killed her cousin (and possibly is also responsible for the death of another cousin and her aunt), and she blurts out her suspicions over the phone.

“Perhaps it’s best if we don’t involve Cat or Crispin just yet,” Spade said, calling Bones by his human name as he always did. “They’ve had an awful time of it recently. No need to fret them if it’s something I can handle.”

Denise bit back her scoff. She knew what that translated to. Or if she’d just imagined all this. (Frost 13-14)

A Terrible Fall of Angels by Laurell K. Hamilton

 

ANGELS WALK AMONG US, BUT SO DO OTHER UNEARTHLY BEINGS IN THIS BRAND-NEW SERIES BY #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Meet Detective Havelock, a man with the special ability to communicate directly with angels. A former trained Angel Speaker, he devoted his life to serving both the Celestial beings and his fellow humans with his gift, but a terrible betrayal compelled him to leave that life behind. Now he’s a cop who is still working on the side of the angels. But where there are angels, there are also demons. There’s no question that there’s evil at work when he’s called in to examine the murder scene of a college student—but is it just the evil that one human being can do to another, or is it something more? When demonic possession is a possibility, even angelic protection can only go so far. The race is on to stop a killer before he finds his next victim, as Zaniel is forced to confront his own very personal demons, and the past he never truly left behind.

 

A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock, book one) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Start date: September 6, 2021

End date: September 7, 2021

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars

There was so much, for lack of a better term, stuff packed into this novel. It’s an ambitious first novel of a series. I feel like Hamilton had a lot of ground she wanted to cover to establish this story and subsequent novels, and she packed it all into one nearly 400-page book. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it’s not a great thing either.

Detective Zaniel Havelock works for the Metaphysical Coordination Unit (colloquially known as the Heaven and Hell unit), which is a part of the police department that deals with crimes with a supernatural bent. Zaniel is called to the scene of a murder, and what bumps the crime to Zaniel’s division are the angel wings found scattered across the crime scene. It becomes clear to Zaniel that the murderer was no angel when a live angel appears and tells him that the victim was killed by something unknown, something not demonic “but it should be” (Hamilton 18).

Shadowed Steel by Chloe Neill

 

In the newest installment of the USA Today bestselling Heirs of Chicagoland series, the vampires in Elisa Sullivan’s world are out for blood.

 

Elisa Sullivan is the only vampire ever born, and she bears a heavy legacy. After a sojourn with the North American Central Pack of shifters in the wilderness—where she turned a young woman into a vampire to save her life—Elisa returns to Chicago.

But no good deed goes unpunished. The ruling body of vampires, the Assembly of American Masters, is furious that Elisa turned someone without their permission, and they want her punished. When an AAM vampire is found dead, Elisa is the prime suspect. Someone else is stalking Chicago—and Elisa. She’ll need to keep a clear head, and a sharp blade, to survive all the supernatural strife.

 

Shadowed Steel (Heirs of Chicagoland, book three) by Chloe Neill

Start date: September 3, 2021

End date: September 6, 2021

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

Elisa’s actions in Wicked Hour have come to bite her in the butt in Shadowed Steel. Someone has turned Elisa into the Assembly of American Masters, the governing body for vampires, for the woman she changed into a vampire in Minnesota, Carlie. The AAM has devised the punishment for the crime of turning someone without that person’s permission (and without their permission) is to force Elisa to join a House and submit to Testing.

Fated by Rebecca Zanetti

 

MARRY ME

Cara Paulsen does not give up easily. A scientist and a single mother, she’s used to fighting for what she wants, keeping a cool head, and doing whatever it takes to protect her daughter Janie. But “whatever it takes” has never before included a shotgun wedding to a dangerous-looking stranger with an attitude problem…

OR ELSE

Sure, the mysterious Talen says that he’s there to protect Cara and Janie. He also says he’s a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Of course, the way he touches her, Cara might actually believe he’s had that long to practice…

 

Fated (Dark Protectors, book one) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: August 30, 2021

End date: September 1, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: unhealthy representation of BDSM

I knew from the first scene that I wasn’t going to like this book very much. The story opens with Cara Paulsen being forced to flee her home by a stranger. Janie, Cara’s four-year-old daughter, wakes her up crying that “the bad men” are coming, and Cara’s reaction is to comfort her daughter who clearly had a nightmare. Then Cara hears noises in her house and immediately believes it’s the evil people. For being a scientist, Cara doesn’t think like one. If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. She doesn’t believe she’s being robbed or any other explanation for why someone might be in her house. Her immediate reaction is to run into the bathroom and try to escape through the window, which is at least logical. When the intruder bursts into the bathroom, what she has to say isn’t logical:

“You have the wrong house.” (Zanetti 3)

            I’ll let that reaction rub you, dear reader, the wrong way like it did me.

Wicked Hour by Chloe Neill

In the second pulse-pounding novel in the USA Today bestselling Heirs of Chicagoland series, vampire Elisa Sullivan gets drawn into the shifting sands of Pack politics.

 

Vampires were made, not born—until Elisa Sullivan came along. As the only vampire child in existence, she grew up with a heavy legacy, and tried to flee her past. When circumstances drew her back to Chicago, she stayed to keep it safe. With shifter Connor Keene, the only son of Pack Apex Gabriel Keene, at her side, she faced down a supernatural evil that threatened to destroy Chicago forever.

Now that the dust from the attack has settled, Elisa is surprised when Connor invites her to a usually private Pack event in the North Woods of Minnesota, and by the warm welcome she receives from some of Connor’s family, even though she’s a vampire. But the peaceful trip is soon interrupted. The shifters tell tales of a monster in the woods, and when the celebration is marred by death, Elisa and Connor find themselves in the middle of a struggle for control that forces Elisa to face her true self—fangs and all.

 

Wicked Hour (Heirs of Chicagoland, book two) by Chloe Neill

Start date: August 26, 2021

End date: August 28, 2021

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 stars

 

This book starts off by answering the question of what happened after the events of the last book. Faithful readers will remember that Elisa Sullivan was left stranded in Chicago by the vampires of Maison Dumas when things got all murder-y at the peace talks. Following that, Elisa was essentially let go from her job with them and got one working for the Ombudsman office in Chicago. Elisa and Connor Keene shared a spicy (and confusing) kiss after saving everyone from the evil fairies, and it seems like they’re stayed in touch while they went about their respective businesses, Elisa in Chicago, and Connor in the Midwest. In the previous book, Lulu Bell was working on a mural at the North American Central Pack headquarters, and when this book opens, it’s the unveiling night.