I loved this book! It's nice to have a heroine who is more mature. She has enough life experience to deal with the things going on around her. I love her snark and all the missing ducks. I'm looking forward to the next book. ( )

hb ( )

{First of 5 of Forty Proof series; urban fantasy, contemporary setting, older female protagonist} (2020)

Full disclosure; this is not my preferred genre. I'm not sure why I picked this up but it's somehow landed on my Kindle. Could be I was sucked in by the blurb (note to self - do not be sucked in by the blurb. Again) or maybe I thought I should try something new (but I usually do that via the library) or maybe it was a Kindle deal.

So, anyhow. Breena O'Rylee is old and she's just gone through a nasty divorce so she's run home to Savannah from Seattle with her tail between her legs. Growing up, she lost her parents as a young girl so her gran brought her up and trained her to deal with the shadow world but after she got married, Himself (she can't bring herself to name her ex-husband) put her in a psych ward for seeing bogeymen and so she asked her gran to take away her second sight. As a result, she has no friends in Savannah and no contacts except Corb, the black sheep of her husband's family, and so she crashes at his place. She interviews for a job that pays better than her current dog grooming job and signs on as a trainee with the Hollows Group. They ... deal with the shadow world. And though Breena is old (older than the other trainees and older, even, than most of the mentors) she has other skills as her old training resurfaces.

I felt an immense amount of pity for them. They were young, early twenties at best, though they might have been even younger. I had a hard time telling now how old young people were. They all looked like babies to me with the lack of experience in their eyes, and the softness of their faces.

Unfortunately, her gran has died in the intervening twenty years that Breena has been away and Himself has somehow transferred Breena's signature to papers that will allow him to sell the house Breena grew up in and inherited from her grandmother - but that doesn't stop her reconnecting with her gran. In the meantime, there is something sinister (more sinister than usual, that is) going on in Savannah and the Hollows Group need to stop it. Once they find out what it is.

Well, it was okay. Breena, though, is so old and feels her age that I'm not looking forward to becoming ... hang on, she's a full decade younger than me! I see that the author must have been 41, the same age as her heroine, when this was published. 41, let me tell you, is practically a spring chicken but Breena's joints creak more than mine do. I think you gather that the constant harping about the age factor was something I wasn't fully on board with. Nor, to be honest, was I a fan of the swearing (so? I'm old fashioned) peppering the first few chapters but that faded away. It's as though Meyer wanted to make her a Lara Croft-type action heroine but emphasise her age and ended up with her neither here nor there. I appreciate her choosing to have an 'older' (supposedly) heroine but I wish she wouldn't keep playing up the downsides.

I did like, however, the variety of people Meyer introduced. As well as demons, leprechauns, werewolves and ghosts there were big foots (big feet?), river maids and some that were described but she refused to name.

I hit the stairs, stuffed one knife into my bag and grabbed the railing with my now-free hand, pulling myself up with my arm as much as with my legs, which had once more turned to jelly. I got to the top of the stairs and bent at the waist to catch my breath. A quick glance over my shoulder proved I’d thought wrong about the spider’s supposed limitations. Those long, hairy black legs were following me.

‘Gran, you never warned me about this!’ I yelled to myself as I moved with speed down the streets that would lead me back to East Perry. I had to believe Corb was still at the loft. Or Sarge.

Something splooshed into the building that I had just circled around. I looked back at the oozing hunk of what had to be web stuck to the old brick building. Only it wasn’t light and airy, but thick like mucus spit.
I stuck my head around the corner to glare at the still oncoming spider. ‘Seriously? You’re spitting at me?’

The spider let out a snarl - yes, a snarl! - and opened its mouth. I squeaked and ran all the way to the Colonial cemetery...

The writing style settled in the latter part of the book and it definitely improved but I'm not sure that I will be continuing with this series. Or, if I'm curious, I'll borrow it from the library, despite my completist genes.

July 2021
3 stars ( )

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Forty Proof series. There are currently four books in this series, with the fifth book expected to release in June of 2021. I borrowed this audiobook from the Audible Plus catalogue.

Audiobook Quality (4/5): This book was well done, the narrator sounded exactly how I imagined Breena would sound and did a good job with other character voices as well. No complaints about the audiobook quality at all.

Story (4/5): This was a cute and fun urban fantasy series featuring a woman in her 40's who comes back to the paranormal world after leaving it behind in her 20’s. After a bad divorce she’s left with nothing and joins a paranormal bounty hunting company to make ends meet. This is a pretty typical urban fantasy type of read but I enjoyed it. It ends up being more of an investigative type of urban fantasy with some action.

Characters (4/5): I enjoyed that Breena is older, you just don’t get to read many urban fantasies where the protagonist is over 20 years old. As a 40 something year old woman, I could relate to Breena and her struggle to stay fit (and occasionally pop an Advil to keep moving). I didn’t really enjoy her constant bitterness towards her ex, but I understood it based on her history. The rest of the cast was well done too and ranges over a broader age range than most urban fantasies (some older, some younger). I particularly enjoyed Robert (the creepy, untalkative skeleton that shows up over and over to help Breena out) and Crash (the super sexy, dangerous weaponsmith who keeps getting tangled up in Breena’s troubles).

Setting (4/5): The whole story takes place in Savannah which was fine. Breena bitches about the tourists a lot which got kind of old. However, I loved all the creepy graveyard settings and the feel of Savannah that is portrayed in the story. I have never been to Savannah before and it was fun to visit it in this book.

Writing Style (4/5): The book is written in a casual way that is very easy to read. The whole story is told from Breen’s POV. At heart Breena ends up solving a mystery around some people who are harassing a half man Yeti. I enjoyed the inclusion of some different types of Shapeshifting races that you don’t normally hear about. This was just a fun read and had some neat paranormal elements and was coupled with a good mystery and some quirky characters.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this, it was a fun paranormal read that featured an older character as the main protagonist. I liked the paranormal creatures, the mystery, the characters, and the creepy settings. This was a great start to this UF/para series and I plan on continuing it. ( )

A new first book in a new series/genre that 15 authors call the “paranormal women’s fiction”, centering around women of midlife age and the paranormal.
The series concerns the magical beings of the supernatural world rather more than ghosts. But once again features a woman character in her 40’s who is not willing to be marginalized.

Features a woman character in her 40’s who is not willing to be marginalized. Her name Rylee and some of the physical descriptions of the weapons are similar as in another series by Ms. Mayer. A little bit of cut and paste? or maybe just aged! ( )