An excellent start for a new paranormal series

Dancing with the Devil by Keri Arthur
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nikki James is a scrappy young adult who had a tough life until she was taken in by her employer, who also serves as a protector and mentor to Nikki. Though book one in a new series by Keri Arthur, I got the feeling that Nikki may have appeared in another story by Arthur, but this didn't do anything but make me wonder where her story really started, it doesn't disrupt the story line at all.

Now working as a private investigator of sorts, Nikki is also a psychic with the ability to locate people by touching an item owned by that person. She manages to locate a teenager from a wealthy family, follows her into a haunted house, and inadvertently ends up in the crosshairs of a powerful evil. At the same time, Michael Kelly, a vampire some 300 years old, is following her. He is sent to protect Nikki from the pervasive evil that will begin to haunt her dreams and attempt to destroy her.

Told from third person point of view, most of the story is told from Nikki and Michael's POV, but there are also small bursts of the story that are told from the antagonists POV. The characters are so well developed that the story nearly felt real.

The characters were fascinating and story was highly suspenseful, so now I'm moving onto book two in the series.... I have a feeling I'll be enjoying the entire series.


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A tender story with a paranormal twist

Firefly Hollow by T.L. Haddix
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Appalachia there are folk tales about shape shifters, among other legends. This story explores the shape shifter legends and how it impacts human relationships.

Owen Campbell has been a shape shifter since adolescence, an inherited trait that destroyed his relationship with his father, who never understood his condition. Out of love, his mother sends him to an uncle who is also a shifter, so that he can learn to control his gift.

Sarah Jane Browning loved to escape to the woods between Owen's home and her own, burying her teenage angst and misery near a beautiful pond. She and Owen don't meet in that wood, at least not that she knows of.

When I first started reading this story, having it start with a humiliated Sarah as a teenage high school student, I thought maybe this book would be more young adult/teen fiction. But during the early coarse of the novel Sarah grows up. The time frame is late 1950s to 1960s. It is told in third person point of view, but only from two points of view - Sarah's and Owen's. These POVs are skillfully intertwined and Haddix weaves a beautiful story that actually made me shed more than a few tears.

This grabbed my attention and my heart from the opening chapter. I can't wait to read the second book in the series.

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