I took a chance with this new-to-me author because I always crave for urban fantasy with male protagonist. While it took me quite a whole to finish it but I guess I liked it enough. I wasn't completely invested with the voodoo ritual part of the book -- I mean, I enjoy urban fantasy stories with magic, but voodoo (with their rituals and their gods) is something different altogether. Which was why I was keep being distracted with romance books instead.

However, I liked Cisco's 'voice'. I also found his backstory and what happened to him with the losing memories to be quite appealing. To think that he killed his own family because he was turned into a killing machine zombie!!. Think of the atonement he could make *lol*. So yeah, I thought this could be a potential for good urban fantasy series.

So I probably check the second book.

I received this book as a gift from the author with no strings attached.

Note: While this is Book 3 in the series, it works fine as a stand alone.

The Sycamore forest is known for strangeness. Anyone who has spent quality time in the area knows this. Diego de la Torre, former CDC hunter of werewolves, gets pulled into a new mystery when he stops on the highway to help a panicked mother (Julia) find her lost daughter Hazel. While it’s not technically Detective Maxim Dwyer’s area, his friend Diego calls him in anyway. Unexpectedly, another girl (Annabelle) is found, one who had been lost for three days. Now, authorities and Diego are all concerned there is something more going on in the Sycamore woods.

I’ve enjoyed the first two books in this series (The Seventh Sons & The Blood of Brothers) and this installment to the series is pretty darn good. While the first two books dealt with the local werewolves, there’s barely a mention of them in this book. But don’t worry! This book has the unknown, the noir detective feel, and very interesting characters.  Maxim and Diego continue to be my two favorite characters in the series and both feature heavily in this book.

So let me get my one criticism out of the way so I can get back to telling you how much I enjoyed this book. The lady characters are sparse and lacking in depth. Julia is a beautiful woman, a possible love interest, and a mother who can do little more than cry over her lost daughter. We also meet Annabelle’s mom, who has more personality, but again is mostly just a sex object and a ball of anger. While Annabelle has a little more going on than Hazel, they are both one-dimensional characters. Kaeda Burnett, a Yavapai woman from Book 2, makes a brief appearance and gives some sage advice. I know the author can write great female characters because he’s done it in other books. Too bad this book didn’t have any. All the plot decisions are made by male characters and the guys get to have all the fun and outdoor activities.

OK, so setting that aside, we’ve got this great mystery. Annabelle can’t recall much of her time spent in the woods. It’s all  fuzzy and dream like. Or so she says. She’s pretty despondent, not answering questions, and being withdrawn. Maxim suspects she knows more but isn’t sure how to reach her. Then there is her mother that just wants her to snap out of it and get back to school and her normal life. As they dig into Annabelle’s whereabouts prior to her going missing, a drifter who has frequented Sycamore Moon for many years pops up on their radar.

And then things get strange. In previous books, we knew up front that we were dealing with werewolves. Here, the supernatural quality is slow to come and then it took me some time to figure out what we were dealing with. That was part of the mystery and it was a slow delicious burn.

Diego is still trying to figure out where he fits in the world. He loves the area but he’s not an outlaw biker like the Seventh Sons motorcycle club he once belonged to. Nor is he law enforcement, as he once was working for the CDC. Yet he’s not good at driving trucks on a schedule working for a boss either. I really enjoyed watching him figure all this out and I have a guess as to where his path will lead him.

Maxim is another mystery, to some extent. He lost his wife and has difficulty trusting people in general. Living and working in the Sycamore Moon area hasn’t helped that as nearly everyone he encounters has a secret. Still, it takes a person with a flexible mind to accept the things he has come across, and he needs all that quick thinking to unravel this mystery!

Despite the lack of female characters with depth, I was thoroughly caught up in this tale. I had trouble putting it down so I could get a bit of sleep, and I finished it in 2 days. I’m looking forward to the next installment in the series!

I received this book free of charge (via Audiobook Blast) in exchange for an honest review.

The Narration: Jason Jewett did yet another fine job. His Spanish accent for Diego de la Torre is spot on. Now I’m not trying to make Jewett blush, but his voice for Diego with that Spanish accent is quite something! Very sexy. His female voices and little kid voices are believable. All his characters are distinct. I love his somewhat gravelly voice for Maxim. 

Note: While this is Book 2 in the series, it works fine as a stand alone.

Maxim Dwyer, the lead detective assigned to Sycamore, has his hands full. The Seventh Sons, the local motorcycle club, is made up mostly of werewolves. He and they have an understanding, but things are about to happen that will challenge that agreement.

This book was excellent. I really enjoyed Book 1 (The Seventh Sons) but I have to say this book is even better. Perhaps that is because it is much longer and the characters and plot have that much more time to engage with me. Maxim and his friend Diege de la Torre are at the center of this plot. It’s part mystery, part shifter tale, part thriller, and all satisfyingly good. I really had a hard time setting this book aside as sleep was over taking me.

Diego, a former CDC assassin, joined up with the Seventh Sons for the camaraderie and the freedom of the road. While the other members obviously know he is not a werewolf, and is immune to the virus that causes lycanthropy, they don’t know he use to hunt and kill errant wolves for the CDC. He has so far resisted engaging in any illegal activity, such as drug or gun running, but that is beginning to rub some of the MC members the wrong way. Diego is sitting on a fence and sooner or later he’s going to be pushed one way or another. And West Wind, an Apache member of the MC, may be the one to push him.

Kaeda Burnett has recently returned home to her Yavapai family from college. She’s never felt truly welcomed there, except by her grandfather, because she is not fully Yavapai. But she felt obligated to visit before she heads out into the world again with her degree. Her two older half-brothers, the Dokas, play pivotal roles in the plot. The Yavapai have historically had a few mercenary werewolves out for hire. This isn’t a secret to Kaeda, but she has never engaged with any of that business. However, with her brothers in a mess, she may have to.

Meanwhile, the FBI have sent in Marshal Boyd to manage the latest case – a person was found skinned on Yavapai land and there are some concerns it was a hate crime. Boyd and Dwyer butt heads from the beginning. Now toss in Los Pistoles, a MC from California, that wants part of the Seventh Sons territory for gun and drug running, and you have several forces in play. When a member of the Seventh Sons ends up dead, there are several people to point the finger at.

My only quibble with this book is that there are only three female characters and really on Kaeda gets to spend time front and center. The other two are Melody (who we met in Book 1) and the female lawyer for the Seventh Sons. These two ladies have perhaps 10 lines between the two of them. Kaeda on the other hand is an excellent character and is central the plot. She’s book smart and patient with herself. She can quickly assess what she is capable of or not, though she usually figures out a work around. Her grandfather gives her good advice, but it is hard for Kaeda to follow through on. It’s obvious the author knows how to write quality characters or either gender, but I do wish we had more ladies in this book.

Despite that, I just loved this book. The plot was intricate with so many motives in play. I absolutely love the Southwest setting because this author does it right showing the great diversity present in this part of the world. While I guessed one or two things concerning the deaths, chunks of the ending were a surprise and this made the wrap up rewarding. I greatly look forward to the next installment.

I received this book free of charge from the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Narration: Jason Jewett did another fine job. His Spanish accent for Diego de la Torre is spot on. His female voices are believable. All his characters are distinct. I love his somewhat gravelly voice for Maxim. 

Small town Sycamore has its secrets. Some of those secrets Detective Maxim Dwyer won’t let be. A biker brawl involving an out of towner and a few members of the local motorcycle club (The Seventh Sons) lets Dwyer pry into the MC’s business.  But what he uncovers is not what he was expecting.

I saw this audiobook kicking around the blogosphere and I passed it on by. The description starts off comparing the book to the TV shows Supernatural and Sons of Anarchy. While I did watch the latter, I was a bit burned out of misogynistic MC stories, no matter how intriguing the individual characters. I have only watched a handful of Supernatural episodes, but they were not my cup of tea. But then the author contacted me directly looking for a review and I decided to give it a chance.

Let me tell you I am ever so glad that I did! I so very much enjoyed this book. The characters have meat on their bones, the plot is a full 7 courses, and the setting adds an intense spice to the book. Let me assure you this is no gender-weighted MC tale. This is a detective noir story that happens to have practical werewolves at the center of the mystery. There are female characters in position of power who have real personalities and don’t always need a man to rescue them.

There’s quite a bit of ethnic diversity in this book too, which is another thing I really appreciated. Set in Arizona, the ethnic diversity is an accurate reflection of what you will find in the desert Southwest. Also, the mixing of cultures and backgrounds added to the intensity of the story.

Maxim Dwyer and Diego de la Torre at first start off on opposite sides. Indeed, Diego is in handcuffs and a cell while Maxim gives him the 3rd degree interrogation. Pretty quickly the werewolf aspect of the story comes into play and Maxim is not pleased. One of his men is hurt and his suspects are missing. The trail keeps leading back to the head of the MC, Miss Debbie. Diego also has questions for Miss Debbie about his missing sister. It’s an excellent set up and the plot just gets better from there.

Now I want to mention the practicality of the werewolves. First, there are no sexy wolfy sex scenes. There’s no big moonlight werewolf hunts with terrified and fainting women. Rather, these individuals are ill and carriers of the illness. The Center for Disease Control is well aware of the werewolves throughout the country. There are rules the werewolves must abide by if they don’t want to be hunted down by the CDC.  One of these rules is to keep your head down & to stay out the limelight. The MC is skirting the edge of that rule. This was an unexpected and very awesome aspect to the story. In some ways, this practical treatment of the werewolves removed the supernatural element, but it also made the story so much more accessible as a biologist.

All the characters are interesting to some extent and most of them are tortured by something. Maxim’s wife went missing two years ago and no matter how hard he hunted, he never turned up any leads. Diego has this driving force to find his sister. Miss Debbie and the CDC representative have their demons too, ones that will come close to destroying Maxim and Diego. All these little secrets meant that we had little plot twists throughout the story that definitely added to the suspense.

I listened to this book in less that 2 days. Honestly, I didn’t want to put it away but I had to sleep and eat. The noir detective feel to the story caught my attention up right away. The characters held my attention throughout the entire story. The ending, which was indeed satisfying, left me ready to fire up the next in the series.

I received this book free of charge from the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Narration: I was impressed with Jason Jewett’s narration. There are several Hispanic characters in the book and he did the perfect soft Hispanic accent in distinct character voices. I live in a part of the country where I hear spoken Spanish almost every day so it was very nice to hear the Spanish/Hispanic accent done right for this book. He also had a strong and sometimes harsh voice for the tortured Maxim Dwyer. His female voices were believable.