Title: Witches, Voids and Other Sanity Suckers
Author: Kara Thorpe
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 5 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Alpha of the only Shifter pack in Houston, Rick Haskell has his hands full. When the Mage of New Orleans calls for a favor – a favor that pays $400,000 – Rick can’t refuse. Even if that favor means adopting the Mage’s daughter into his ragtag pack. Az Vardan is beautiful, smart, and takes frequent vacations from sanity. Before Rick can learn how to handle the blonde kiss-and-run firecracker, wolfsbane appears in the local coven’s garden, witches mysteriously die in police custody, and a rash of centaur murders rocks Houston’s Paranormal Community. Az’s knowledge of magic may be all that saves Rick’s pack when a new, powerful threat moves in to take over his city.
First person, present tense
Warning: language, violence, and irreverence (and Oxford commas)
Witches, Voids and Other Sanity Suckers is a delightful, original read with so many surprises and twists you just can’t put it away. It’s one of the best paranormal romances I’ve read since I started blogging. The world-building is impressive, especially the part about Voids, and the characters are intriguing.
Let’s start with Rick Haskall. He’s a wolf shifter, and a private investigator of sorts. As the alpha of a pack of misfit shifters, he has his hands full. But when he’s hired to take care of Az Vardan, the daughter of the Mage of New Orleans, he can’t refuse, especially not with the price tag attached to this job. But Az is nothing like he expected.
Az is a Void, which means she can absorb magic, but doing so makes her temporarily insane. From the moment Rick and Az meet, there’s sparks. Tension rolls off the pages, and it’s so much fun to read their dialogue and flirty banter. Az was my favorite character of both of them: she’s strong, smart and resourceful, yet she’s flawed too, and I liked that.
Even more than the characters, the plot drives the book forward. Witches die in police custody, centaurs are being murdered, and someone seems to be after Rick and his pack, a threat more powerful than anything he’s ever faced, and he’ll need Az’s skills and knowledge to help defeat it.
It’s a fast-paced, highly entertaining book, and I can’t wait for the sequel.
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