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I received a copy of this book at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really fun book, even if part of the premise didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. In the world the book is set in, there are people who are destined to live life - or at least part of it - by the basic plot of a fairy tale. It's never explained how or why this happens, but once I decided to just accept that it does and not worry about it making sense I was able to thoroughly enjoy the book.

There a lot of humor in the story but plenty of mystery, too. The romances were sweet (and yes, there's more than one!) and the guys are great. There are a lot of twists and turns to the plot, but they're nicely set up and the reveals flow naturally into the narrative.

This is the first book in Christina Bauer's "Fairy Tales of the Magicorum" series. It's certainly an intriguing start and I'm interested to see where it goes next.

The London Coven is made up of the three most powerful witches in the city who have been charged with policing the denizens of the Uncanny Kingdom - the hidden magical world in this series' universe - and to help keep most humans unaware of its existence. They've been doing their job for a few hundred years, but as the story opens, Stella Familiar, a humanoid woman the Coven had created to assist them in their work, comes home to find them dead. Stella quickly begins trying to find out what killed her witches and avenge their deaths.

Aside from a short prequel story I haven't yet read, "Familiar Magic" is the first book in publisher Genre Reader's London Coven series, one of at least three series they have that are set in their multi-author Uncanny Kingdom universe. It's full of action, snarky humor, interesting people and lots of magic. It's a face-paced tale that still manages to work in some strong world-building and good character development.

Stella makes for an intriguing heroine. She was conjured up, fully grown, by her masters, and she never ages, but even though she was created for a specific purpose, she's not just a puppet or living automaton. She has a full range of emotions, is smart and witty, has strengths and vulnerabilities and is able to determine her own path, be it what she needs to do in the moment or what plan she had for her own future.

She gets teamed up with Detective David Tyler, who until Stella entered his life knew nothing about the magical world existing along-side the human one. And while he may get flustered when confronted with yet some other new thing or experience, he has an almost unrelenting positive attitude and does his best to just roll with it. Together, Stella and David make for a formidable (and entertaining) team.

This was one of those books I had a hard time putting down once I picked it up. It's a promising start to what I'm hoping will be a really fun series.

I voluntarily read an advanced reader copy of this book.

Maya's abilities continue to grow - as does her budding relationship with Nick - in the third installment of the series.

The goddess Kali has granted Maya the ability to bend time, but when she makes use of her new ability after a mission goes wrong, she discovers that it confers with a price.

Quite a bit happens in the book, moving the overall story along at a nice pace. There are several surprises in store and it was nice to see her parents and Claudia being more involved in the action.

I liked that they was more than one mission in the book and that we learn more about some of the key players. It was also interesting to see Maya having to deal with the repercussions of using her expanded powers, and I really enjoy her gentle romance with Nick.

I received a copy of this book at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Wow.

I've loved this series since I started reading it, and have eagerly awaited each new installment. I have yet to be let down, and the series just keeps getting better.

Dorian Lake has been having a rough time lately. As if losing his soul wasn't bad enough, his troubles from the magical world are affecting his friends - some in truly awful ways - messing with his lovelife and getting him caught in the middle of an internal war within one of the most powerful magical groups in the country. And while he has never wanted to participate in Netherwork (dark magic) his enemies aren't leaving him a lot of options.

In this story, Dorian's slow-but-steady fail continues as he realizes that demonic forces are trying to create mass chaos in his city and he finds someone who claims to know where is soul is - but will only tell him if he can get concessions from a new group in town. Of course, this new group has conditions of its own if he wants their assistance. Not helping matters any is an upstart practitioner who is competing with Dorian for customers, and winning a bit too often for Dorian's taste.

Author JP Sloan managers to juggle all of these elements with a deft hand and throws in several twists just to keep things interesting. One thing I particularly liked was that none of the twists were so obvious that I was able to predict what was going to happen, yet when I reflected back on the events leading up to them, I could see how Sloan had carefully set each element up so that when the dominos began to fall it all made sense.

This story was by turns exciting, humorous, touching and devastating. Sloan has created a believable alternate reality and stocked it with interesting - and generally likeable inhabitants. I like that his characters are not clearly divided into good guys and bad ones. Instead, they're multi-dimensional with both positive and negative attributes. It's hard to watch a character like Dorian - who I've grown quite fond of - falling so far and harder still to know he's probably not reached bottom yet, but I'm really eager to find out what happens next and to see how - or if -Dorian can be redeemed.

I received a copy of this book at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The first book in TG Ayer's "Soultracker" series gets it off to a good start. Melisande (Mel) Morgan has a number of paranormal gifts which she uses to track and hopefully retrieve missing persons. She can locate the person psychically using an object they've been in contact with or a sample of their body - like what law enforcement would use for a DNA sample - and can project her consciousness to different locations, such as where the person she's seeking is located or a room she wants to check out, even if it is in a different dimension. She can also physically jump herself pretty much wherever she needs to go, and can bring one or more people with her as long as they are all in physical contact. Her home base is Chicago, and while few officers are aware of her talents (or the existence of the paranormal world, for the matter) the Chief of Police knows what she can do and the two have a good working relationship.

As I've come to expect from Ms. Ayer, the story is well plotted and her characters are distinct and dimensional. Even the strongest characters have their weaknesses, and these vulnerabilities feel appropriate given what else we know of the characters, rather than a flaw that seemingly exists simply to move the plot further. Ayer does a nice job of setting up the different turns the story takes so that while they're surprising, they also make sense.

Soultracker is part of Ayer's Dark World universe, a setting shared with her Skinwalker series, and there are a number of mentions made to characters and events there. These are nice "Easter eggs" for fans of both series, but no knowledge of the Skinwalker story is needed to understand this one.

I do wish she'd sometimes back off from the "insta-romance" trope that is used so often in any kind of romantic storytelling. Her Valkyrie series is a great example of just how effective it can be to build a relationship more slowly, giving the reader more time to get invested in the couple and enjoy the different milestones they pass as they grow closer. Fortunately, though, it's not a major annoyance and the other elements of the story are strong enough to outweigh it.

Ayer has quickly become one of my favorite authors because I know I can rely on her to provide a well-crafted tale, full of interesting characters and set in a fully-realized and unique world. Her work is definitely worth checking out.