Yay! Reading Shiloh Walker makes me happy. Spectre is a stand alone, although I do hope Tia's brother will get his own story eventually, told in the third person but switches focus between Tia and Meric. I love the characters in this book. Meric "Spectre" was raised to be a killer, his father was ruthless and if Meric hadn't of killed him at the age of 14 Meric would be a soulless and ruthless as his father. Sarge found him shortly after and saved Meric and while Meric still grew up to be an assassin Sarge fine tuned his skills and taught Meric to trust and have morals and rules. Even after Sarge died Meric never strayed from his own rules so when Boston mob boss and leader of a white slavery ring offers him a job to kill the sister of the cop who busted his brother Meric knows he's not going to take the job band unless he does does something someone else will.

Tia had a difficult childhood with a irrational mother who hated her and after she died was left to an Aunt who clearly hated her too. Tia always knew she was different from everyone else and everyone else made it clear she wasn't "normal". It wasn't until she was older that she was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, Aspergers. It took Tia a while to find her "normal" but she likes her life now with her best friend and her brother, even though he lives in another state, and her job teaching painting to kids who are just like her.

Spectre knows the only way to keep Tia safe is to remove her from the playing field; after all you can't kill what you can't find so he kidnaps her. But he was smart enough and observant enough to realize the transition and move would be easier for her with familiar things so he brings her dog, and art supplies and with how organized she is it was easy to pack clothes and toiletries. I love that he cared enough to do this that he understood that it mattered. Tia is scared and confused at first but when Spectre explains to her what's happening and when she gets proof she's more cooperative. I love that they are both blunt they are straight forward with their emotions and fears their was no whining and hemming and hawing, and I love Meric's solution.

Overall, this was a great read. The action is intense and the romance is hot, with some light bondage play. The story as a whole was fantastic, I love Shiloh Walker's writing she writes and I completely become immersed in the story and invested in the characters. If you are new to Shiloh Walker she does tend to get graphic, one reason I love her, as the Warning that is attached to the blurb says Warning: This isn’t a snuggly, comfy read. The male MC is a hired killer, while the heroine is neuro-atypical. Some dark material is involved—the hero kidnaps the heroine. There’s also violence when he goes on a rampage against those who put a contract on her. Also references of abuse (not against the heroine). Also very graphic, erotic scenes with minor bondage play.     

The Sterling Ranch’s season opening isn’t going so smoothly. With the ranch’s lodge full of guests and a Montana blizzard threatening, Will Sterling needs help—and he needs it fast. So when his childhood friend Poppy Carmichael agrees to lend a hand, he’s grateful for a second chance…and more enticed by the woman she’s become than he cares to admit.

For Poppy, it was supposed to be a retreat full of horse rides and hoedowns—with a side of showing Will what he’s been missing all these years. But as the snow deepens outside, the guests’ suspicion and mistrust turn sinister inside, catching Will and Poppy in the crosshairs.

Weathering the storm in each other’s arms is all too easy for Will and Poppy, but will a confrontation with a killer mean their reunion is short-lived?

I was amused at the name: Vax is a character in a D&D game i watch on youtube, only *that* Vax is a half-elf rogue assassin paladin. Both Vaxes though have one thing in common - they exhibit TSTL behavior. In this case, the heroine called it; Vax is a stupid jerk.

The h is an investigative reporter with telekinetic abilities. She noted something suspicious about a series of rape/murders and started poking her nose in. She got too close and one of them grabbed her little sister, killed her. Now she's on a mission and she doesn't care if she survives it as long as the bad guys go down.

Vax, introduced a few books ago, is a witch. He's also a retired Hunter because reasons, and he's been wearing that hair shirt for nearly 100 years. He gets the Call, and goes to investigate.

He manages to rescue her, they do some discussing, the bad guys send a mutant after her, he rescues her again, while capturing the mutant. They take said mutant to other Hunters...and here's where it starts to get shaky. If there's one, there's bound to be others. They have names. They know there's a vampire involved. They go back to finish it without anyone coming along as aid (why?) his restocking (or stocking up as the case may be) the silver nitrate, etc. Then they find the lab, go down there, have a confrontation, and run. He manages to get beneath her shields (finally), knocking her out, and goes back after them, alone. He also sends a message to the Hunters he'd talked to before. SOMEhow, he survives it, but the vampire manages to give him something that destroys his powers, and the female witch (whose book I haven'd read, because I don't have it) senses it, but doesn't try to extract it.

Actually, considering they both were flyers, I don't get why she didn't poof them both out and work on him outside. I don't get a lot of things though, like if he was able to explode the vampire, why he didn't do that in the first place? And if the h had a gun loaded with silver bullets, why the hell didn't she shoot? And if he was a flyer, why didn't he poof behind the various mutants and slash them with his fancy silver knife? There's a hell of a lot that does NOT make sense in this one. It's like the abilities were ignored to draw the book out.

Now for the "romance" bit. He tells the h upfront that he's not into relationships. She tells him she doesn't do casual and pushes him away. Eventually though, they end up horizontal. He picks up on her lack of a will to live and yet... after everything goes down (and they both miraculously survive it), he's an insensitive jerk, telling her to go get herself a life. I kinda wonder how he'd have felt if, when he went back to apologize, he'd found she'd offed herself. She didn't though. She was pissed off, and punched him at least once. I thought perhaps she should have used her powers and shoved him out a window, or whacked him upside the head with a lamp.

Beyond the prose which at times was eyeroll inducing - an orgasm clawing it's way out? What was it - part Alien?! The switch to mainstream publishing seems to have been a good thing for this author. There's an actual plot, some action that isn't horizontal, a H who has no prior knowledge of the h (at least, none that he remembers - she wiped his memory of a v. brief occurrence a few years ago, because she didn't know he knew there were "others") and therefore isn't an utter ass towards her.

The beginning is kindof a prologue - the H and his best buddy are bounty hunters. His best buddy is a cat shifter. They track down a job who skipped bail, all hell breaks loose when a couple of vampires show up, and the h and her hunter teammate show up in the nick of time. She doesn't realize that he and the cat shifter are buddies, the shifter is hurt, so in their efforts to clean up everything, they rearrange memories - something that only partially sticks.

2 years later, he's become a vampire hunter and spots her. His memory rearrangement being dodgy, he assumes she killed his partner. He's a bit startled to discover his partner is now her teammate.

Of course, this being a romance, it quickly devolves to a biblical getting to know her better but... in the meantime, her partner is kidnapped by a former ward of hers.

Eventually the problem child is run to ground and taken care of, but not before she turns the H.

The one thing that does bother me - why does the H's partner NOT ask them what they did with his buddy? Why did he let him think he was dead? Why?????

3.5-ish. It gets brownie points because the h actually LEFT when the H refused to claim her, and in fact was with another man when the H tracked her down. They're kinda small though because it took him several months to realize she was gone. :/

So Rafe, for reasons we're never clued in on, refuses to claim Sheila, or admit he has feelings for her. So he essentially treats her like...I dunno...a blow up doll maybe? He doesn't acknowledge her or talk to her much if anyone is around, and well, after he came back from a trip and didn't speak to her for several days, she'd had enough. He had the thought that she was just saying that and was more than willing to press his point but the master and others stopped him. So...

The bulk of the story starts 6 months later, when he's finally tracked her down and finds her with another guy. (yep; caught in the act. Perfect.) He doesn't drag his heels for long this time re: claiming her but there's a much older vampire - an evile one - and that one decides to have new guy for a snack. Their paths cross with a couple of his old victims, who just happened to grab the poor guy and turn him - sortof. Fortunately, Rafe does help the guy.

Anyway, the bad guy is taken out, Rafe is now a master and he has a second...or lieutenant...or something...in the new guy. He also shares - once - the h, with the new guy.

The formatting issue wasn't completely absent, but for the most part, someone did pay attention to scene changes and put a few breaks and asterisks in. So...yay?