4.5 stars.

Recommended.

While the book was stunning, even without true romance, I can't give it five stars.

The last chapter ruined it for me. Not because how it ended but the way it ended. While I cheered for the MCs, I could not connect with that reality.

Don't want to say anything else for the fear of spoilers, I already gave away too much.

@Monica - thank you, my friend, for the amazing rec and gift :) *hugs*

The first half was OK, I was thinking 3-3.5 stars, but second part was full of info dumps and unnecessary details.
Uber convenient magical abilities and handy magical artifacts popping up at the times of need don't add stars either.

Нудная середина и нудный конец. Я ожидала больше, чем "она его за муки полюбила, а он ее за состраданье к ним".

The "comfort" bit of hurt/comfort was overdone, trying to compensate for falling in love, I guess. Once Callisto's new charm was in place to stabilize his condition, everything slowed down to a crawl.

There have been three brutal attacks with multiple victims, but so far @60% the MCs have just one sorta kinda maybe theory. Instead of investigating, they have unrelated to the investigation talk, drink tea, hang out with relatives, have more tea, more talk, hang out here and there again, insult each other on occasion, talk and drink more tea. 

If a casual hang out drinking tea and having conversations thing butters your cucumber sandwich, then this story is for you. However, I am done.

1 star. Sorry, JD, this simply is not my cup of tea.

One of the best series I've ever read. 
By the looks of it, there is going to be a #6 and a good chance for a #7 =)

Best part, don't worry about gaps in between the books if you can't read them straight up. This one is so easy to remember. There is only a handful of characters and a simple universe where anything goes. If you manage to remember a (dead) Witch Council, 2.5 MCs (cause very prominent zombie dog for a pet) and 4 secondary characters, you are golden! Oh.... and Donald Drumpf Trump. He is a part of this book, and you just cannot forget THAT character, no matter how much you try.

yeah, now you know why I tagged this book "horror" and "humor" at the same time

5 stars.

PS I just want to mention: this series is urban fantasy at it's finest truest purest self. A major city, Indianapolis, to be precise, is housing all kind of magical creatures that human population is not aware of. A human detective along with his friends - a few humans with and without psy abilities and paranormal/magical creatures - battle the dark forces. It's not simply taking action in a city, it sticks to the tradition. An extra star just for that. And that makes it SIX