Necromancy,
mind control, vampires, succubi, and a creepy bookstore -
what a fantastic combination for an urban fantasy story! In
this story, the intrepid group (made up of magic-users, butt-kickers,
two vampires, a vampire's assistant, and a couple of succubi)
is mostly dealing with a necromancer and the creepy dead things
he plays with, a job complicated by some skeevy vampire politics.
Since Grave Matters is the second book in the Night Owls series,
I was thrown into the story without quite knowing everything
that was going on, which really was only a problem when it
came to the Creeps, which were also called Jackals. I'm still
not certain what they are since they make an appearance in
the second book only in references, as clearly they're important
to many of the characters. Despite a little confusion at first,
I quickly settled in to love the characters as they fight
bad guys and struggle to make sense of the little dysfunctional
family they've formed. The storyline moves at a good clip,
and the author does a great job of ramping up the stakes and
tension as we go along to create a reading thrill ride that
I truly enjoyed.
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