An ancient book of faerie magic. A renegade who will stop at nothing to possess it. And the two boys who stand in his way.
When fifteen-year-old Tar, part vampire, part something else, helps his father break into a remote house, he doesn’t care about the book his father is looking for. What he does care about is the little locked-up faerie kid. Merrick is alone, vulnerable and deaf.
The break in goes wrong, but Tar refuses to leave the eight-year-old even though it means facing his father’s fury. Events spiral from bad, to worse, to out of control: the book disappears, and Tar and Merrick are wrenched apart.
The boys grow into men, one living in the light and one in darkness, yet neither has forgotten the other. As powerful forces rise, the search for the missing book gains momentum, and Tar and Merrick’s paths collide once more.
Merrick is the key to the missing book and Tar is faced with a near impossible task: to keep the man he cares for safe, and do everything he can to stop the book and its secrets from falling into the wrong hands. And maybe, just maybe, save the world as we know it.
Amazon – Kindle Unlimited
If you have read the previous three and are fans of this series, you know you want to know about the mysterious Tar. The guy in charge of PR, the guy who won’t say what he is, although many have guessed vampire. But he isn’t just vampire. And he is more than the stoic, stand off-ish guy that not many like to be around.
The book starts when Tar is 15, so we get a lot of his backstory and what made him the man he is today. A mother who disappeared when he was young, a conman for a father, a deaf 8 year old boy and a magic book that too many people want to get their hands on.
Then book then jumps to present day. We already know from previous books that Tar is the head of Paranormal Relations, kind of a paranormal police. That is secret because most people have no idea that paranormals exist. We also catch up with that 8 year old boy, who now wears cochlear implants and is a traveling doctor.
Even when they were kids and only knew each other for a few days, you could tell that their souls were connected. The way Tar took care of Merrick, defending him, was quite literally willing to put his life on the line for this 8 year old he never met before. And Merrick just implicitly trusted Tar and looked up to him.
So when their paths cross again in London twenty some odd years later, it seems like kismet. But Tar isn’t who Merrick remembers. He is a broken man who doesn’t trust anyone and can’t stand to be touched. And even though Merrick didn’t have an ideal life, he is just the kind of positive person that can’t help but be positive. Even though he has been running and looking over his shoulder since that fateful day in the forest.
The story brings back old enemies looking for the magical book. Tar and Merrick are trying to get to the bottom of it, using what little magic Merrick has and the resources Tar has. We also see Tar and Merrick as adults falling in love with each other. Tar, the man who is never happy, always grumpy, often scary turns into a bit of a marshmallow with Merrick. There’s a learning curve, though, for the man who doesn’t let people get close, doesn’t touch unless he has to, doesn’t share his life. But Merrick integrates himself like a stray kitten that you don’t want but it keeps showing up on your doorstep so you feed it until you finally break and let him in.
This was by far my favorite of the series. I don’t know if it was because of the change in Tar, or that so many previous main characters are involved in the story or because the magic was just wonderful. And by magic, I mean really faerie magic. It was a beautiful little world hidden inside… well, you’ll see.
You can read this as a stand alone easily, but the others are very good reads as well.
4 pieces of eye candy
Barbara Elsborg lives in Kent in the South of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her. Volcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide.
After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop.
Her books feature quirky heroines and bad boys, and she hopes they are as much fun to read as they were to write.
As a matter of fact, nobody really batted an eye about it and I loved seeing that. I have teenage kids that are heading into college in the next year or two, one of them is gay. We live in a small conservative town with zero support for the LGBTQ community, so I’m hoping they can find a place where there’ an open community and such acceptance. Fingers crossed, right?
