Grabbing the latest book in this series is a no-brainer for a couple of reasons. First, I know I’m in for a well written, twisty murder mystery. Second, I get to spend time with the wonderful Brenda Blethyn. Ever since I saw her portrayal of Vera Stanhope, she’s become the voice in my head as I read these books. And that’s no bad thing.

The story begins when Vera ends up with a baby. But not the usual way. In the middle of a blizzard, she comes across an abandoned car with a tiny person inside. Their only hope is to make it to the nearest house which just happens to be the ancestral home of her father’s estranged family. Awkward.

And so Vera is reunited with snooty matriarch Harriet, her daughter Juliet & son-in-law Mark. She hasn’t seen this side of the family since childhood & it sets up an interesting dynamic. But any chit-chat will have to wait as Vera calls in reinforcements to deal with the baby, the car…..wait, where is the mom? By the time help arrives, there’s another more pressing question: who is the dead woman in the back yard?

And we’re off. Joe, Holly & all the regulars are back as the team tries to identify a killer who is hiding in plain sight. Motive is key to solving the case & as Vera digs with her typical persistence, family secrets & hidden ties are revealed. Appearances can deceive & even the happiest families have fault lines, soft spots that must be protected to maintain a facade.

The plotting is excellent & there are several credible “killers” to choose from. But what elevates the story is the addition of Vera’s personal history & present day interaction with long lost relatives. As local connections are uncovered, she has to wonder if her family knows more than they’re telling. They remember her as the awkward, frumpy daughter of the family’s black sheep. She may still be all those things but now she’s also an intuitive cop with the power to sort through & air their dirty laundry.

Picking up one of these books is like bumping into old friends. I love Vera & enjoy watching as criminals underestimate her at their own expense. Joe continues to be her long suffering righthand man while Holly’s character & relationship with the boss is further developed.

The pages fly by driven by a steady pace, clever dialogue & well rounded characters. By the end, the woman’s death is not the only mystery solved as Vera gains new insight into her father that may help put some of her personal demons to rest.

So sweet!
Luc and Evie belong together. Forever and ever, amen! You just don't realize how true that fact is until the end when the story all comes together.
Okay, so you learn things throughout the book, it keeps you turning page after page, but the core of the story is in the last few chapters.
I had already learned about these different beings in Obsidian, but this series is focused on Luxen and Arun. More powerful than the Origin we learned of. Especially, the Luxen. Just like humans have good and bad people, so do the Luxen. Definitely takes you on a nailbiting adventure as Evie learns about herself. (She lives among those beings.)
I admit, there were a couple moments that I was almost about to lose interest and then something would happen to pull me back in...
With being as vague as I'm being, I can tell you it's a great start to the series. If you are a fan, you won't be disappointed. If you like sci-fi-ish stories with a romance twist, read it! 

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Not much to say about this besides this was not a book for me. It dragged. Endlessly. I stopped and started this thing about a dozen times and finally finished it because I got tired of seeing it on my NetGalley dashboard. It's a horror novel set during World War I that had way too much dialogue. I mean to the point that I went, please shut up. All of you. Also I feel like I have seen this book played out via movies before. I think at one point I started Googling things and then realized it didn't matter cause I just didn't like this book. It also appears to have been updated and re-released every year according to Goodreads which to me was another bad sign that I wish I had known about before clicking on the damn request button. Mental note, in 2020 I am going to research books before getting click happy on NetGalley.

"The Damned" is the first book in "The Darkest Hand" trilogy. Taking place in 1914 in the city of Arras, a priest is murdered. The Catholic Inquisition (I guess they are still a thing at this point, no, I am not looking that up to see if that's true or just literary license) sends one of their inquisitors, Poldek Tacit (seriously that name was hilariously awful) to investigate. While this is going on with Poldek (seriously, that name sucks) trying to investigate, British and German forces are fighting across No Man's Land. 

I don't even know what to say here. Poldek is found by the Church after he is found holding on to his mother who was murdered and raped. So yeah, we are still using the rape and death of a woman to "mold" men. Cause if women were not there to develop men what good are we? Can we stop doing this in 2020? I would love it. Thank you. 

There's also another character named Sandrine who is trying to get a soldier (British) Henry to leave the area. Yeah it sounds like I just got booted into another book there didn't it? This is the whole freaking book. A lot of stuff happening that doesn't seem connected that drags on forever. 

The writing was so so and the flow was awful. It takes too long to get to the whole who are the damned thing and of course I guessed at it because I have read horror books before. I don't mind if books revel in cliches, but at least make it worth my time. 

The setting of the book as I said above is during World War I. There was so much information being thrown at me I just wanted to scream at some point. I am not one of those people who love to read endless books or watch movies about World War I or World War II. Also every time I read "No Man's Land" I kept thinking of the Wonder Woman scene depicting that place and then started to wish I was just watching that movie all over again (though the third act is a mess). 

I have zero intention of reading books number 2 or 3. 

Audiobook. I'd read anything Jim Butcher wrote even Spiderman. I'm not a Spiddy fan BTW. Now for the real shocker, I liked it, really liked it. The story had all the right levels of action, emotional moments and fun. The narrator did an excellent job, the author, well he can do no wrong.

The Audio Book: