The first book in the Gallow and Ragged series was pretty much a scene setter for the whole series, I think.  At least it felt that way to me. 

I really liked the character of Jeremy Gallow, half-sidhe construction worker who has withdrawn from the world of the sidhe.  He's cranky, even mean at times.  He has a dry, depricating wit that I much appreciated.  And you know, he's a good representation of the halfbreed anti-hero type, one of my kinks.  :)

Robin, the heroine?  I'm not sure yet. Just when I think I like her, she leaves me scratching my head and wanting to shake her.  

Anyway, this was an okay read.  There was a lot of scene-setting and fancy prose surrounding all things fae-ish that I felt was a bit over-done for my liking, but YMMV.  I have come to the conclusion that urban fantasy - while I do enjoy some of it - is really not my go-to genre.  I will most likely read others in the series when they come out, but it won't be a rush to buy.

Oh, and the cover of this one might not be stunningly beautiful but it sure is eye-catching in a positive way.  

I am always looking for new series to read. Here are new some Paranormal Romance, Science Fiction Romance, and Fantasy Romance to check out! 

My lists are never in any particular order. Enjoy!

1. The Unleashing (Call of Crows, #1) by Shelly Laurenston

2. Marcus (Hell Squad, #1) by Anna Hackett

3. Trailer Park Fae (Gallow and Ragged, #1) by Lilith Saintcrow

4. The Terrans (First Salik War, #1) by Jean Johnson

5. Forbidden (Luna Lake, #1) by Cathy Clamp

6. Ink and Shadows (Ink and Shadows, #1)  by Rhys Ford

7. Prudence (The Custard Protocol, #1)  by Gail Carriger

8. The Last True Vampire (Last True Vampire, #1) by Kate Baxter 

9. Cursed by Fire (Immortal Brothers, #1) by Jacquelyn Frank 

10. Flight from Death (Fly by Night, #1) by Yasmine Galenorn

Vote for you favorite  Best New Paranormal, Fantasy, Science Fiction Romance Series 2015!

This book was like a frustrating game of capture the flag, but Lilith Saintcrow keeps getting me with her endings. I'm so torn about this series! Full review to follow.

*I requested this book for review from the publisher.

Robin is sent to pick up the cure for the black boil plague, that's making the full-blooded Sidhe sick, from Summer's mortal pet scientist. Robin is scurrying through the gates into the mortal world as those that hunt this season are the Unseelie Hunters, and they have scented her trail. Jeremiah never expected to see his mortal love to walk into the tavern five years after her death. Jeremiah rushes to help her, and draws attention to himself. Now the Sidhe he has hidden from are looking for him to return once again. First Robin must retrieve the cure from another while staying out of the Unseelie Hunters grasps. She's curious of the man who's come to her rescue, unneeded. But she has plans, to make a deal for something she holds dear to her with the Queen with the cure she carries.

Where do I start? I'm taken with this story as a whole. The characters are one with the story. Their actions are based on what's happening around them and what they feel their only choices are. The story helps drives them. The style of the writing fits the setting and creation of the world. The book is a complete package for the fey style!

Has Lilith taken speaking lessons from the Fey? From Shakespeare? We get the full affect of Sidhe and their sideways ways. When she is writing the Sidhe speaking or thinking sections I'm blown away with the magnificent structure of her sentences. The double sided blade of each word is present. You can find the truth somewhere in what they are saying. Her descriptions are complete and told while giving the feel of the characters in the moment. Lilith uses items and ways to describe things that are new and not repeated in books around. I loved this and looked forward to the interaction of characters with each other and their surroundings.

I can, however, can see some struggling with the style of the writing, but I think Lilith has carried the style through with the backward ways of the Sidhe. When I first started I wasn't ready for the Sidhe's ways. I paused, reoriented my thinking, and dove in to follow Gallow and Ragged through their adventures. The writing style is one that demands my full attention to catch the meaning in the words. I'm one who enjoys a book I need to pay attention to.

Lilith has blended current with old in this fascinating tale. She's taken the old fae characters we know and twisted them with the current ways of the world. The story circles around the sidhe growing sick, one by one. The half fae are safe. Each character has their own motives and what they are trying to achieve through the story. These motives and actions draw Jeremiah and Robin together.

Jeremiah Gallow is one of the half fae. Gallow has 'tattoos' on his arms, but they are no tribal sign. I love the tattoos and their purpose. Those 'tattoos' are powerful and a weapon bestowed on him from dwarven ink. He carries his weapons with him at all times. Robin Ragged is another half fae. Her power is in her voice, and Puck needs her. There's a young boy in Summer's grasps that she wishes to save, and Robin will do about anything to do just that.

This is not a romance read. This is straight up fey and urban fantasy. There are fights and running. There are also twists and turns, as there is with Fey, to who is doing what.

I loved reading this book as the actions of the characters fall in line with their needs as they are forced to do what they feel is their only choice under the pressure of the Sidhe. There is action and mayhem. Puck is up to his no good deeds, as always. Summer is as demanding and eye catching as ever. Unwinter is as bold and cold as expected. Robin has learned from the best to play a portion of the game to get what she wants. And Jeremiah is stuck in the middle of them all.

There has to be more to come with Jeremiah Gallow and Robin Ragged. I am looking forward to it!

Wnat to fall in a new world? Check out these Brand New Paranormal, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Romance Series!

1. The Exile (Book of the Fae)  by C. T. Adams

Brianna Hai runs an occult shop that sells useless trinkets to tourists--and real magic supplies to witches and warlocks. The magical painting that hangs in Brianna's apartment is the last portal between the fae and human worlds.

A shocking magical assault on her home reveals to Brianna that her father, High King Liu of the Fae, is under attack. With the help of her gargoyle, Pug, her friend David, and Angelo, a police detective who doesn't believe in magic, Brianna recovers what was stolen from her and becomes an unwilling potential heir to the throne.

2.  Prudence (The Custard Protocol) by Gail Carriger

When Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama ("Rue" to her friends) is bequeathed an unexpected dirigible, she does what any sensible female under similar circumstances would do -- she christens it the Spotted Custard and floats off to India. 

3. Halfway Dead (Halfway Witchy Book 1) by Terry Maggert

Carlie McEwan loves many things. 

She loves being a witch. She loves her town of Halfway, NY—a tourist destination nestled on the shores of an Adirondack lake. Carlie loves her enormous familiar, Gus, who is twenty-five pounds of judgmental Maine Coon cat, and she positively worships her Grandmother, a witch of incredible power and wisdom. Carlie spends her days cooking at the finest—and only—real diner in town, and her life is a balance between magic and the mundane, just as she likes it. 

When a blonde stranger sits at the diner counter and calls her by name, that balance is gone. Major Pickford asks Carlie to lead him into the deepest shadows of the forest to find a mythical circle of chestnut trees, thought lost to forever to mankind. There are ghosts in the forest, and one of them cries out to Carlie across the years. Come find me. 
Danger, like the shadowed pools of the forest, can run deep. The danger is real, but Carlie’s magic is born of a pure spirit. With the help of Gus, and Gran, and a rugged cop who really does want to save the world, she’ll fight to bring a ghost home, and deliver justice to a murderer who hides in the cool, mysterious green of a forest gone mad with magic. 

4. There's Something About Werewolves (Seven Brides for Seven Shifters) by Thalia Eames

Lennox Averdeen’s top three worst fears:

1. Anything remotely canine.

2. Finding out she has a secret baby.

3. Running into Garrett Anderson. Former best friend. Heartbreaker.

She pulls a trifecta when she realizes the stray canine and the tween kid hanging around her house are not only one and the same, he’s Garrett’s wolf shifter son.

When Garrett tracks down his runaway son and sees Lennox again, the widowed father’s heart begins to struggle against his self-imposed chains. Plus, just coming into town pits him against the local Alpha, and everything he hates about pack life. The death, the heartache.

Despite her fears, Lennox becomes the boy’s mother in all but DNA. But Garrett? He can hula-hoop with the nine rings of hell. Except the heat of attraction has never died, and there’s only one way to slake their sexual thirst. Make a smoking-hot deal, agree to part as friends…and try to ignore the sound of Fate howling with laughter.

5. The Last True Vampire (Last True Vampire) by Kate Baxter

SOUL SURVIVOR
He is the last of his race. The one true king of the vampires. Michael Aristov roams the nightclubs of L.A. after dark, haunted by his past and driven by his hunger. The last of the Ancient Ones, he alone has survived the destruction of his race at the hands of the slayers. Now he is forced to hunt and feed like a common vampire, a creature of lust. Nothing in this world can fulfill his needs…until he meets a woman who's everything he's ever wanted. And more.

SWEET SALVATION
Her name is Claire Thompson. Her blood is so sweet, so intoxicating--the smell alone draws Michael to her like a moth to the flame. Sly, sexy, and seductive, Claire seems to be the only mortal who can satisfy his craving and seal his fate…forever. Can she be trusted? From their very first kiss, the last true vampire sweeps Claire into a world in which darkness rules desire--and where falling in love is the greatest danger of all

6. The Terrans (First Salik War) by Jean Johnson

Born into a political family and gifted with psychic abilities, Jacaranda MacKenzie has served as a border-watcher and even spent time as a representative on the United Planets Council. Now she just wants to spend her days in peace and quiet as a translator—but the universe has other plans…

Humans have long known that they would encounter more alien species, and while those with precognitive abilities agree a terrible war is coming, they do not agree on who will save humanity—a psychic soldier or a politician.

But Jackie is both.

After she is pressured into rejoining the Space Force to forestall the impending calamity, Jackie makes an unsettling discovery. Their new enemy, the Salik, seem to be rather familiar with fighting Humans—as if their war against humanity had already begun…

7. To Mate an Assassin (The Lost Alphars Series) by Ceri Grenelle

Cymbeline Kendall’s life is quiet, solitary—until a letter appears in her P.O. box. Then she becomes an Incendiary, a human chosen at birth to be trained to strike like lightning to take out the most dangerous of the Werekind, then fade back into the shadows. 

She is a weapon only to be used by the leader of North American shifters. But when she learns the Alphar was unseated three years ago, she sets out to find who’s been pulling her trigger.

Kerrick Masterson has borne the burden of leadership for only a short time, yet he already feels the Alphar power tempting his soul toward the insanity that destroyed his predecessor. He has no time for the woman who breaks into his compound claiming to be his Incendiary, but his beast insists he make the time—for his mate. 

In one searing, soul-consuming breath, everything Cymbeline was taught to believe is ripped away. Yet the mystery of who’s been sending her orders remains…and finding the answer could lead to all-out war. 

8. The Veil (Devil's Isle) by Chloe Neill

Seven years ago, the Veil that separates humanity from what lies beyond was torn apart, and New Orleans was engulfed in a supernatural war. Now, those with paranormal powers have been confined in a walled community that humans call the District. Those who live there call it Devil's Isle.
 
Claire Connolly is a good girl with a dangerous secret: she’s a Sensitive, a human endowed with magic that seeped through the Veil. Claire knows that revealing her skills would mean being confined to Devil’s Isle. Unfortunately, hiding her power has left her untrained and unfocused.
 
Liam Quinn knows from experience that magic makes monsters of the weak, and he has no time for a Sensitive with no control of her own strength. But when he sees Claire using her powers to save a human under attack—in full view of the French Quarter—Liam decides to bring her to Devil’s Isle and the teacher she needs, even though getting her out of his way isn’t the same as keeping her out of his head.
 
As more and more Sensitives fall prey to their magic, and unleash their hunger on the city, Claire and Liam must work together to save New Orleans, or else the city will burn…

9. Flight from Death (Fly by Night) by Yasmine Galenorn

’m Shimmer, a blue dragon shifter. Thanks to a mistake, I was exiled from the Dragon Reaches and sentenced to work for Alex Radcliffe, a vampire who owns the Fly by Night Magical Investigations Agency. Now, not only do I have to adapt to Earthside culture, but every time I turn around, somebody’s trying to kill us. And worse, Alex is as gorgeous as he is exasperating. But you know what they say: All’s fair in love and bounty hunting…

When an old friend of Alex contacts him about a haunting at the High Tide Bed & Breakfast in Port Townsend, Washington, we think we’re on a simple ghost hunt. But our investigation quickly transforms into a deadly fight as we uncover an eighty-year-old murder, a cursed house, and a dark force trapping the spirits within. To stop impending disaster we must break the curse and lay the angry spirits to rest.

10. Trailer Park Fae (Gallow and Ragged) by Lilith Saintcrow

Jeremiah Gallow is just another construction worker, and that's the way he likes it. He's left his past behind, but some things cannot be erased. Like the tattoos on his arms that transform into a weapon, or that he was once closer to the Queen of Summer than any half-human should be. But now Gallow is dragged back into the world of enchantment, danger, and fickle fae by a woman who looks uncannily like his dead wife. Her name is Robin, and her secrets are more than enough to get them both killed

Do you have any great new series to recommend? Please do!

Vote for the best of the best on my Goodreads list: New Paranormal Romance Series (2015)