There is "not enough" trend in this book, IMHO.

Human Bart's not sick enough the way his illness is described.

Pest does not care enough & not emotional enough. He is detached and doesn't spend enough time with Bart.

Pest and Death talk about secrecy but they are not secretive enough. In fact they can't seem to keep their mouths shut.

The whole falling in love process is not convincing enough.

The whole case of pandemic about to explode is not believable 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.

After years of being imprisoned, used and abused by his father, Holden is finally settling down in Stillwater, a small New England town. He's been on the run for a long time, trying to cover his tracks by changing his name and moving from one place to another as far away from his home state as possible. 

A happy protective bubble of Stillwater seems like heaven. It has a few quirks, of course, but which town does not? Everyone knows everybody and people are mostly friendly. That is until Holden meets Daniel, a local vet (who is a veteran). An injured cat and the severity of the injury make Holden a catnapper when he refuses to surrender the poor kitty for euthanization and flees the clinic. 

Daniel knows what Holden is and confronts him shortly after catnapping. From that moment on the town secrets and the mysterious creatures start coming out of the woodwork full force. Every time you turn the page, there is a surprise. Every time you think you finally know who/what the person is, you are proven wrong. Things, people, situations turn and twist; there is humor, there are pockets of darkness and despair; there is an amazing diversity of characters (not going into details on the characters' subject, cause - spoilers! ;))

I could not get enough of the book and really wanted to give it five stars, but here is this:

- it ends smack in the middle of things. I can't even call it a cliffhanger, more like the author roughly separated the manuscript in two without much thought. 

- the story lost its momentum around 80%. Instead of fast paced it became stagnant with characters sitting around in one spot for weeks, waiting for the next full moon, reflecting, eating pizza and even (finally) having sex, since there is literally nothing else to do. But it looks like things are going to pick up with a vengeance in book two :D

Otherwise, an excellent read and pure pleasure :) Highly recommended

Surprisingly engaging read, considering that there is absolutely no angst and boys do nothing but hang around, drink and eat in fancy-schmancy places :)

Dani, whose annoying "via iPhone" presence, ruined it a little for me. 4.5 stars instead of 5.