UPDATE! Shelly Laurenston: CALL OF CROWS SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Shelly Laurenston's CALL OF CROWS SERIES with a review of The Undoing, the second novel in the series. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Christine Feehan: CARPATHIAN/DARK SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Christine Feehan's CARPATHIAN/DARK SERIES with a review of Dark Promises, the 28th novel in the series.

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

Debut Novel by Lucy Wood: "Weathering"

Author:  Lucy Wood  
Title:  Weathering
Plot Type:  Elements of Magical Realism (fantasy elements in the real world)
Ratings:  Violence—2; Sensuality—2; Humor—2   

Publisher and Titles:  Bloomsbury USA (1/2016)

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY: 

     Lucy Wood is the author of a critically acclaimed collection of short stories based on Cornish folklore entitled Diving Belles. She has been long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and was a runner-up in the BBC National Short Story Award. She has also been awarded the Holyer an Gof Award and a Somerset Maugham Award. Lucy Wood has a Master's degree in creative writing from Exeter University. She lives in Devon. 

     Click HERE to read Lucy Wood's essay, "What I Learned from Writing My First Novel." Click HERE to read an interview with Lucy Wood about Weathering.

PUBLISHER’S BLURB: 

     Pearl doesn't know how she's ended up in the river—the same messy, cacophonous river in the same rain-soaked valley she'd been stuck in for years. But here her spirit swirls and stays. 

     Ada, Pearl's daughter, doesn't know how she's ended up back in the house she left thirteen years ago—with no heating apart from a fire she can't light, no way of getting around apart from an old car she's scared to drive, and no company apart from her own young daughter, Pepper. She wants to clear out Pearl's house so she can leave and not look back. 

     Pepper has grown used to following her restless mother from place to place, but this house, with its faded photographs, its boxes of cameras and its stuffed jackdaw, is something new. Fascinated by the scattering of people she meets, by the river that unfurls through the valley, and by the strange old woman who sits on the bank with her feet in the cold, coppery water, Pepper doesn't know why anyone would ever want to leave.

     As the first frosts of autumn herald the coming of a long winter and Pepper and Ada find themselves entangled with the life of the valley, with new companions who won't be closed out, each will discover the ways that places can take root inside us, bind us together, and become us.

    

MY REVIEW: 
     Wood sets her debut novel in a moldy wreck of a house in a rural, forested river valley in southwest England (light green area at lower left on this map). “It was an isolated place: trees thickening into woods, the sun barely reaching in. Gales funneling through. The moor rose up in the distance, humped and stark as something marooned. There were farms spread out for miles: sloping fields, derelict stores, barns. Cows bunching together and shifting their weight slowly from leg to leg. Steaming out of their noses like kettles…And the river. The river winding through it all.”

     The river is almost a character in the story as it swirls and seethes in the background throughout the book—sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent, and sometimes ferocious. "It was wide and brown, and it rippled and churned. There were deep creases when it went round rocks and a hollow, clunking noise. It looked strong, like a muscle." 

     The events take place between late fall and early spring. Here, life is driven by the harsh weather, particularly the precipitation, which ranges from rain to sleet to snow, thus providing a stark color palette of gloomy grays, dreary browns, and bleak whites. No pink and red sunrises here—dawn comes with “a glimmer of grey, which spread like the sky was being scrubbed.”  

     Into this setting, Wood places a 34-year-old single mother and her six-year-old daughter: Ada and Pepper. After more than a decade of moving from place to place trying to escape from her rural roots, Ada has returned home to handle the final affairs of her mother, Pearl, who has recently died…but has she?

     In the first chapter, we find Pearl struggling in the river: “Pearl flailed, grabbed at the water, but with what? Nothing to grab with but somehow she was back on the surface, dipping and whirling and strewn about. Bits of grey dust here, bits of grey dust there—almost impossible to recognise herself.” If you haven’t figured out what’s going on at this point, the second chapter makes it clear that Ada has just cast Pearl’s ashes into the river (from a box provided by the undertaker and engraved with the incongruous epithet, “A Beloved Pet.”)

     Wood describes her novel as "a magic realist ghost story," and she uses the third-person voice to tell her story from the perspectives of Pearl, Ada, and Pepper: three generations of women whose lives have as many parallels as differences. Pearl is trying to figure out what happened to her—how she got in the river—and in doing so she looks back on key events in her life. Ada plans to be off to her next destination quickly after cleaning out her mother’s rickety, run-down cottage and selling it to the first buyer she can find, but then she starts to believe that this place just might work for them. What Pepper wants is frequently unclear—even to herself. After all, she is only seven. Sometimes she wants to move on like they always do, but after she meets some adults and children who accept her eccentricities, she begins to believe that staying here might be best.

     Both Ada and Pepper see and have conversations with Pearl, but not spooky, scary conversations. To Pepper, Pearl appears as an old woman who hangs out by the river, soaking her bare feet in the frigid waters. To Ada, Pearl appears in the house, sharing memories and giving advice while she drips icy water in puddles on the floor and leaves small mounds of stones in her wake. As Pearl and Ada share their memories, the reader begins to fill in the blanks that are left early in the story. Objects that are mentioned in passing early on are found to have special meaning as the story progresses—for example, an ancient brown coat (“a long coat hanging down, like a person standing there waiting”) and a bright green belt—once a gift (worn twice) and now a discard.

     As fall shrivels into winter, Ada struggles with her guilt over having left her mother alone and failing to provide a stable environment for Pepper. Pepper gradually becomes less aloof and more content in the falling-down house and on the banks of the ever-changing river, where she begins to take photographs of birds with Pearl’s old camera.

     Wood’s greatest strength is in her vividly realistic imagery as she describes the deplorable details of the piteous reality of life in the ramshackle house with its eternally leaking roof and constant creaks and groans of settling, rotting wood. At first, Ada and Pepper subsist on canned foods: “Pepper…tilted her face up and dropped the peaches into her mouth one by one, like a bird eating orange fish.” That night, Ada is too uneasy to sleep as she listens to “the river’s boom as it muscled forward.” She sits down in “an armchair in the corner of the kitchen…among newspapers and crumbs. The fridge wheezed…The clock sometimes missed a tick — tick, pause, tick — and she found herself waiting for it nervously, like someone waiting for news.” Day by day, conditions in the house get worse: “Ice inside the windows like bumpy glass. Books curled and smelled like wet towels, doors swelled up and didn’t shut properly.”

     But gradually Ada renews old friendships and both she Pepper begin to make new friends, among them Tristan, a carpenter ten years younger than Ada who works hard at resetting the roof tiles. As winter draws near, in the garden “a single daffodil peeked out and, startled to see the white world, withered and turned brown.” (Earlier, in warmer weather, the daffodils bloomed brightly, “like lamps.”) The pattern of a friend’s ancient, musty couch is “orange and brown daisies and coffee stains.” As winter sets in, “the chimney smoke struggled out into the snow. Brewing into icy smog. Stunned by the cold, it hung droopily, strung across the trees in hammocks.”

     In this vignette, Ada goes in search of firewood: “Out into the weather. The roar of the river. Cobwebs slung like hammocks in the hedge. The smell of bonfire and wet soil. Long grass soaked her shoes. Nothing in the vegetable plot except mushy weeds bowing to the earth, something sodden and green that may once have been a potato. In the shed, swallows’ nests festooned the beams. Old paint pots, their lids splashed with the blue of her bedroom, the yellow of the bathroom. The ax and saw were leaning against the wall but there was no wood, not even a twig for kindling.” These brief but vivid images are scattered throughout the book, making the scenes come alive for the reader.

     Although almost everything about the setting of this book is dark and dreary, the singularity of the characters and their interactions with each other and with nature (particularly the river and the rain and snow) add heart and soul to their stories. Each one faces the daily grind of life with such gumption (to use an old-fashioned word) that they steal your heart—particularly Pepper.

     This is a book that must be read with patience. It is very slow paced and very dark, but once I began to get more and more back-story on the characters—both primary and secondary—I truly did find myself pulled into their lives. Be aware that this is neither a plot-driven adventure nor a scary ghost story. Instead, it is a slice from the interconnected lives of three unforgettable women. Click HERE to read an excerpt from Weathering. 

     To enhance your reading experience by getting the full effect of the river, click HERE to listen to Water Stream, a frequency-shaped water stream voice generator that allows you to increase or decrease the volume and animation of the various water sounds. Play it in the background as you read.

NOTE: You will notice some irregularities in the spellings of words in the quotations (in green). That’s because the author is British and is using British spellings (for example, grey and recognise).

RT Book Reviews Award Winners for 2015

The May edition of RT Book Reviews (in stores now) announces the Reviewers' Choice Awards for 2015 in a variety of categories. 

This post includes ONLY those books that won in otherworldly categories such as paranormal romance, steampunk, urban fantasy, general fantasy, and science fiction. Click HERE to go to the RT web page showing the winners in all of the categories.

If a title is a pink-link, you can click on it to read my review of the book.

Reviewers' Choice Awards

      Paranormal Romance:

      Vampires Never Cry Wolf, by Sara Humphreys

      (Novel 3 in DEAD IN THE CITY series)

      Paranormal Worldbuilding:

      Shadow's End, by Thea Harrison

      (Novel 9 in ELDER RACES series)

      Paranormal Romantic Suspense: 
      Gideon, by Cherry Adair

      (Novel 1 in STARK BROTHERS series)

      Fantasy Romance:

      The Talon of the Hawk, by Jeffe Kennedy

      (Novel 4 in THE TWELVE KINGDOMS series)

      Steampunk:
      Of Silk and Steam, by Bec McMaster
      (Novel 5 in LONDON STEAMPUNK series)

      Urban Fantasy Novel: 

      The Dragon Conspiracy, by Lisa Shearin

      (Novel 2 in SPI FILES series)

      Urban Fantasy Worldbuilding: 

      Vision in Silver, by Anne Bishop

      (Novel 3 in THE OTHERS series)

      Indie Urban Fantasy: 

      One Good Dragon Deserves Another, by Rachel Aaron

      (Novel 2 in THE HEARTSTRIKERS series)

      Fantasy Novel: 

      Wake of Vultures, by Lila Bowen (aka Delilah S. Dawson)

      (Novel 1 in THE SHADOW series)

      Epic Fantasy Novel: 

      Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott

      (Novel 1 in BLACK WOLVES series)

      Fantasy Adventure: 

      The Aeronaut's Windlass, by Jim Butcher

      (Novel 1 in THE CINDER SPIRES series)

      Science Fiction Novel: 
      Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente

      (Stand-alone Novel)

Seal of Excellence (SOE) Awards:

Each month, RT Book Reviews staff members evaluate reviewers' Top Picks and narrow the list down to six to nine books that garnered the most enthusiasm from reviewers. Those books are then further evaluated, with one book receiving that month's SOE. Here are the otherworldly books that received SOE Awards in 2015:

       May: 

       Grave Phantoms (Paranormal Romance) 

       Jenn Bennett

       (Novel 3 in ROARING TWENTIES series)

       July:

       Time Salvager (Science Fiction)

       Wesley Chu

       (Novel 1 in TIME series)

       October: 

       Menagerie (Adult Fantasy) 

       Rachel Vincent

       (Novel 1 in THE MENAGERIE series)

Career Achievement Awards 

In addition to the book awards, twelve authors were recognized for contributions in their genres. Here are the three authors of otherworldly works who were honored for career achievement:

      Paranormal Romance: Christine Feehan

      Urban Fantasy: Laurell K. Hamilton

      Science Fiction and Fantasy: Nalo Hopkinson

If you missed reading my post that listed all of the 2015 nominees, click HERE to take a look. Some of the runner-ups are just as good as, if not better than, the winners. That list also has pink-links to my reviews.

UPDATE! Seanan McGuire: INCRYPTID SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Seanan McGuire's INCRYPTID SERIES with a review of Chaos Choreography, the fifth novel in the series. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Christine Warren: GARGOYLES SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Christine Warren's GARGOYLES SERIES with a review of Rocked by Love, the fourth novel in the series.

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Ilona Andrews: KATE DANIELS SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Ilona Andrews's KATE DANIELS SERIES with a review of "Magic Stars," the 8.5 novella.

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

UPDATE! Karen Marie Moning's FEVER SERIES

UPDATE!

I have just updated an ongoing post for Karen Marie Moning's FEVER SERIES with a review of Feverborn, the eighth novel in the series. 

Click on the pink-link series title above to go directly to the new review.

Faith Hunter: "Blood in Her Veins"—stories from the world of Jane Yellowrock

Author:  Faith Hunter
Series:  JANE YELLOWROCK SERIES 
Title: Blood in Her Veins: Nineteen Stories from the World of Jane Yellowrock
Plot Type: Urban Fantasy (UF)

Publisher and Titles:  Roc (2/2016)

     Back in 2009, this was one of the first urban fantasy series that I read, but somehow it inexplicably slipped through the cracks as I began to expand my reading in this genre—not because I didn't enjoy the series, but because I became swamped by the huge number of new series that hit the market back then. Now that I have read the stories in this collection, I plan to go back and pick up where I left off. Jane is a terrific urban fantasy heroine, and Hunter is a great story teller.

     In my reference book, Fang-tastic Fiction (published by the American Library Association in 2011), I included this entry that describes the series world-building based on having read the first three novels:

JANE YELLOWROCK SERIES 

Urban Fantasy: Violence—5, Sensuality—2-3, Humor—2

WORLD-BUILDING: Jane is a renowned vampire killer, hired by the New Orleans Vampire Council to take care of some “problem” vamps. She is seemingly the last of her kind: a Cherokee skinwalker who can assume the shape and characteristics of various animals, but principally a panther. Several possible love interests/nemeses emerge in book 1: Rick, a Cajun biker (or is he?); George, blood servant to the most powerful local vampire clan; and Leo, the head of that clan. Jane is loaded with weapons (in her hair, strapped to her arms and thighs, and more) and fights fiercely and usually successfully, but she still manages to sustain horrific, life-threatening injuries on a fairly regular basis. Jane’s relationship with her beast within gives a mystical cast to the stories, particularly when the beast helps her remember parts of her childhood years, which have been wiped from her memory.

   Following is Hunter's list of her JANE YELLOWROCK works in chronological order of events, beginning with a story narrated by Beast. The brief annotations for each title are Hunter's, quoted directly from her "Timeline" at the beginning of Blood in Her Veins and/or her notes preceding each story. All titles printed in yellow are included in Blood in Her Veins. "Cat Fight" and "Bound No More" are brand new novellas—never before published.

     Clicking on the pink-links (below) for the novels on this list will take you directly to their Amazon.com pages, where you can read print excerpts by clicking on the cover art and hear audio excerpts by clicking on the "Listen" icons. At the end of the reading-order title list, I have included the publisher's blurbs for all nine novels.

     For more information about the series, click HERE to go to the JANE YELLOWROCK page on the Urban Fantasy Wikia. You may also wish to take a look at The Jane Yellowrock World Companion (2013), which is available HERE on Amazon.com. For a complete reading-order list of stories, novellas, and novels in this series, click HERE to go to the author's list on her web site. Click HERE to read "Candy from a Vampire," a free on-line story about Leo.

     Here is a reading-order list of the eleven JANE YELLOWROCK novels and the stories in Blood in Her Veins:

   "Wesa and the Lumber King" (short story from Beast's point of view, set in the Hunger Times of the late 1800s—early 1900s)

   "The Early Years"  (Short story about Jane just after she left the children's home)

   "Snafu" (Jane interviews for an internship with a PI)

   "Cat Tats" (short story about how Rick LaFleur got his tattoos)

   "Kits" (short story about Jane with Molly Everhart Trueblood as a secondary character)

   "Haint(s)" (short story from Molly's point of view, with Jane as a secondary character)

   "Signatures of the Dead" (short story about Molly, with Jane as a secondary character)

   Skin Walker (novel #1, 7/2009)

   "First Sight" (from George "Bruiser" Dumas' point of view, when he first sees Jane) Here, Hunter lifts a scene from Skinwalker and reworks it into her first story written from Bruiser's perspective.

   Blood Cross (novel #2, 1/2010)

   Mercy Blade (novel #3, 1/2011)

   "Blood, Fangs, and Going Furry" (short story about Rick LaFleur's first full moon after being bitten by a were, From Rick's point of view, with Jane as a secondary character)

   "Dance Master" (From Bruiser's point of view. He calls Jane to investigate a problem in the Royal Mojo Blues Company. And, oh my, do they dance…The story takes place during a period when Jane and Rick are separated by his were-taint. Rick has disappeared to live in the Appalachian Mountains with Kemnebi, while Jane is alone in New Orleans.)

   Raven Cursed (novel #4, 1/2012)

   "Golden Delicious" (Rick is in PsyLED school with his dual nemeses Brute and Pea. His fellow students go missing, and everything starts to go wrong.) This story was included in the anthology, An Apple for the Creature (9/2012). Click HERE to read my reviews of all of the stories in An Apple for the Creature.

   "Cajun with Fangs" (Jane is stranded in Bayou Oiseau when her Harley, Bitsa, has engine trouble. And she walks right into a war between witches and vampire that seems destined to drag her and her boss, Leo Pellissier, down with them into flames.)

   Death's Rival (novel #5, 10/2012)

   Blood Trade (novel #6, 4/2013)

   "The Devil's Left Boot" (The Everhart witch sisters are asked to find a missing woman who had great taste in boots.) This story was included in the anthology, Kicking It (12/2013). Click HERE to read my reviews of all of the stories in Kicking It.

   "Beneath a Blood Moon" (Jane and her team investigate a series of possible werewolf attacks outside of Houma, Louisiana. The story takes place over two days in February, before Mardi Gras.)

   "Black Water" (Jane is back in the Deep South, near Houma, this time chasing a human predator, racing to save the lives of the two women he has kidnapped.)

   Black Arts (novel #7, 1/2014)

   "Off the Grid" (Jane is in Knoxville to do a favor for her boss, the chief fang head of the southeast U.S. It's supposed to be an easy investigation, but a very important vampire has gone missing and Jane is drawn into the search. This is where Jane meets Nell Nicholson Ingram for the first time.) Nell will soon be getting her own series, called SOULWOOD, with the first book, Blood of the Earth, due in August 2016.

   Broken Soul (novel #8, 10/2014)

   "Not All as It Seems" (A short story featuring Molly, who gets a surprise visit from vampires looking for a relic their master lost long ago.)

   Dark Heir (novel #9, 4/2015)

   "Cat Fight" (Jane is back in Bayou Oiseau, where the witches and vamps are again at war, this time over a magical talisman called le breloque.)

   "Bound No More" (Angie Baby and Molly come to visit Jane. When an arcenciel (aka dragon made of light) also shows up, bent on mischief, Angie proves she is growing up—into the most powerful witch in Everhart history.)

   Shadow Rites (novel #10, 4/2016)

**************     **************     **************

Here are the publisher's blurbs for the JANE YELLOWROCK novels:

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #1: Skinwalker

Jane Yellowrock is a supernatural skinwalker—one sharing her body with the soul of a mountain lion. When the rogue-vampire hunter is hired to hunt down a particularly nasty vamp, Jane is drawn into the steamy New Orleans vampire society where she learns the ins-and-outs of the "sane" vampire culture, more about her own Cherokee heritage, and we are drawn into a rousing, fast-paced thriller.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #2: Blood Cross

Leo Pellissier, head of the Vampire Council, has hired skinwalker Jane Yellowrock to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred ancient rules. But Jane quickly realizes that in a community that is thousands of years old, loyalties run deep, mythos have real power, and the past often has more force than the present. 

When the witches and blood magic—black magic—become involved, Jane Yellowrock needs new weapons and friends at her side to fight the malevolent evil that stalks New Orleans.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #3: Mercy Blade

Jane Yellowrock, a shape-shifting rogue-vampire hunter-for-hire, is now taking blood money from the very vamps she used to hunt. But things start heating up in the Big Easy when weres announce their existence to the world, and revive the bitter tensions that run between them and their old enemies—vampires. Jane finds herself caught in the crossfire.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #4: Raven Cursed

The vampires of Asheville, North Carolina, want to establish their own clan, but since they owe loyalty to the Master Vampire of New Orleans they must work out the terms with him. To come up with an equitable solution, he sends an envoy with the best bodyguard blood money can buy: skinwalker Jane Yellowrock. 

But when a group of local campers are attacked by something fanged, Jane goes from escort to investigator. Is it a rogue-vampire, shapechanger, werewolf, or witch? Or something else magical? Unless she wants to face a very angry master vampire, she will have to work overtime to find the killer.  It's a good thing she's worth every penny. 

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #5: Death's Rival

For a vampire killer like Jane, having Leo Pellisier as a boss took some getting used to. But now, someone is out to take his place as Master Vampire of the city of New Orleans, and is not afraid to go through Jane to do it. After an attack that’s tantamount to a war declaration, Leo knows his rival is both powerful and vicious, but Leo’s not about to run scared. After all, he has Jane. But then, a plague strikes, one that takes down vampires and makes their masters easy prey.

Now, to uncover the identity of the vamp who wants Leo’s territory, and to find the cause of the vamp-plague, Jane will have to go to extremes…and maybe even to war.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #6: Blood Trade

The Master of Natchez, Mississippi has a nasty problem on his hands. Rogue vampires—those who follow the Naturaleza and believe that humans should be nothing more than prey to be hunted—are terrorizing his city. Luckily, he knows the perfect skinwalker to call in to take back the streets.

But what he doesn’t tell Jane is that there’s something different about these vamps. Something that makes them harder to kill—even for a pro like Jane. Now, her simple job has turned into a fight to stay alive…and to protect the desperately ill child left in her care.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #7: Black Arts

When Evan Trueblood blows into town looking for his wife, Molly, he’s convinced that she came to see her best friend, Jane. But it seems like the witch made it to New Orleans and then disappeared without a trace. 

Jane is ready to do whatever it takes to find her friend. Her desperate search leads her deep into a web of black magic and betrayal and into the dark history between vampires and witches. But the closer she draws to Molly, the closer she draws to a new enemy—one who is stranger and more powerful than any she has ever faced.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #8: Broken Soul

When the Master of the city of New Orleans asks Jane to improve security for a future visit from a delegation of European vampires, she names an exorbitant price—and Leo is willing to pay. That’s because the European vamps want Leo’s territory, and he knows that he needs Jane to prevent a total bloodbath. Leo, however, doesn’t mention how this new job will change Jane’s life or the danger it will bring her and her team. 

Jane has more to worry about than some greedy vampires. There’s a vicious creature stalking the streets of New Orleans, and its agenda seems to be ripping Leo and her to pieces. Now Jane just has to figure out how to kill something she can’t even see.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #9: Dark Heir 

Shapeshifting skinwalker Jane Yellowrock is the best in the business when it comes to slaying vampires. But her latest fanged foe may be above her pay grade. 

For centuries, the extremely powerful and ruthless vampire witches of the European Council have wandered the Earth, controlling governments, fostering war, creating political conflict, and often leaving absolute destruction in their wake. One of the strongest of them is set to create some havoc in the city of New Orleans, and it’s definitely personal. 

Jane is tasked with tracking him down. With the help of a tech wiz and an ex-Army ranger, her partners in Yellowrock Securities, she’ll have to put everything on the line, and hope it’s enough. Things are about to get real hard in the Big Easy.

PUBLISHER'S BLURB for Novel #10: Shadow Rites

Slaying vampires is child’s play for skinwalker Jane Yellowrock. But handling the complicated politics of New Orleans’ supernatural players is another story...

Jane is keeping the peace between visiting groups of witches and vamps in the city, but then trouble comes knocking on her doorstep. When her house is magically attacked, the wild chase to find her assailants unearths a mystery that has literally been buried deep.

A missing master vampire, presumed long deceased, is found chained in a pit...undead, raving mad, and in the company of two human bodies. Now it’s up to Jane to find out who kept the vampire hidden for so long and why, because the incident could tip already high supernatural tensions to an all-out arcane war.

STILL TO COME: Novel #11: Cold Reign 
I will post the blurb for this novel as soon as it appears on line.