HEX AND THE SINGLE WITCH
Vehicle City Vampires Book One
Roxanne Rhoads
Paperback and E-Book
Print Length: 244 pages
Publisher: Bewitching Books (September 24, 2012)
Disclosure: Downloaded during free public promo on Amazon. Author owns tour company, Bewitching Book Tours, for which I host. So in effect, she is sort of my boss. However, she did not solicit a review from me nor have I submitted it to her prior to posting. No remuneration was exchanged and the opinions herein are my own.
BARNES AND NOBLE (PRINT and NOOK)
Anwyn Rose is descended from a long line of powerful witches yet she can barely cast spells young witchlings have mastered. She has one functioning witch gift, the power of knowing, which she puts to good use as a Detective on Flint’s Preternatural Investigation Team (aka the P.I.T. Crew)
It’s a new era in Vehicle City, supernaturals are running the town.
The P.I.T has their hands full with paranormal crimes. Top priority is a serial killer, who appears to be a vampire, draining young women in the city.
Anwyn is on the case with her sexy partner Detective Mike Malone.
Complicating things is her relationship Galen, a vampire who looks more guilty than innocent, although Anwyn trusts her instincts even if her power is on the fritz.
Mysterious spells, compromising situations, and a possible demon on the loose make it hard to focus on the case, but Anwyn has to make things right before the human police execute the wrong vampire.
Hex and the Single Witch contains magick, a little bit of mystery, a lot of supernatural mayhem, and a sexy love triangle that will leave you wanting more.
www.roxannesrealm.blogspot.com.html
My Take:
This book was refreshingly good. As you know I have a thing about self-published books or books published by the owner's company. But this has a really good story, as well as good plotting and continuity (although I thought it was a little predictable). I thought the timing was great, with action and other kinds of "action" keeping things moving. I liked Anwyn; she's a little insecure, unsure of er looks and doesn't mention much in the way of relationship history. So, she's not unlike many of us. She's never really developed into her "full potential" and I think many of us feel the same way. In this case there really are external forces keeping her down. I like her non-judgmental character and open mindedness. I liked her human beau, Mike, despite his crude boorishness; after all it's a smokescreen. But I could do without the Regency-Period-Born formerly rakish Vampire; he was a little too feminine for me (granted, a Regency man might seem affected and effeminate with all those patches and ruffles.
Some things that were really well done:
- Main character development: You know a lot about Anwyn and how she experiences her abilities.
- Good sex writing — even the dead women's memories are somehow arousing to Anwyn. She feels really weird about it though.
- Description of magic and what it feels like to be magicked --Not many writers bother with this and I felt it added a lot when she would describe the different feelings associated with different spells or types of magic. Plus, Anwyn can in her self-described "slutty" behavior on a hex!
- Good interpersonal relationships with Anwyn and her quirky friend Melanie who reminds me of Abby in NCIS. Also, I liked the down to earthiness of Abby's Grandmother who can cause goats to appear when she gets pissed off - imagine the implications for road rage,
Four things I think Roxanne could work on:
- The dialogue is a little stiff and characters need to use contractions to make the speech seem less formal. In some instances this is due to one character's formal nature. But it bleeds out into other characters as well.
- You know the history channel where after each break they tell you everything you have learned so far over again. Roxanne does that a little. Now, if this were a serialized novel it would be important to reiterate the plot point that her mother has had the porch light on but no one home since her father died. There are a few other instances.
- Info-dumping: Roxanne generally escapes the evils of exposition and she has to give us her world's historic context somehow, but she dumps a lot of information into just a couple of conversations and internal monologue at the beginning of the book.
- Something with the verb tenses confused me but I can't quite put my finger on it.
All in all, I thought this was a pretty good book. It grabbed me right away and kept me involved through the end. Roxanne obviously works hard at developing her craft and knows her paranormal theme well.
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