Publisher: Avon, Harper CollinsGenres: Paranormal Romance

Tracy’s review of One Grave at a Time (Night Huntress #6) by Jeaniene Frost

Having narrowly averted an (under)world war, Cat Crawfield wants nothing more than a little downtime with her vampire husband, Bones. Unfortunately, her gift from New Orleans’ voodoo queen just keeps on giving–leading to a personal favor that sends them into battle once again, this time against a villainous spirit.

Centuries ago, Heinrich Kramer was a witch hunter. Now, every All Hallows Eve, he takes physical form to torture innocent women before burning them alive. This year, however, a determined Cat and Bones must risk all to send him back to the other side of eternity–forever. But how do you kill a killer who’s already long dead?

Cat is approached by her ghost friend, Fabian, and his friend Elizabeth. Many years ago Elizabeth had been falsely accused of being a witch and was burned at the stake by a man name Heinrich Kramer. But he just didn’t incarcerate and then incinerate. No, he tortured and raped the women as well. After Elizabeth caused Kramer’s death he didn’t slip into the great beyond, no the evil bastard became a very strong ghost and one night a year, Halloween, he become corporeal and does to 3 women the same as he did to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth requests help from Cat and Bones to find Kramer and to somehow make him stop. To Cat and Bones this means trapping him in some way. Incensed by Kramer’s past Cat is more than anxious to take care of Kramer for good. Along the way to that end the couple and their friends are thwarted by Kramer himself as well as the new director of the Homeland security division that Cat used to work for, and her uncle used to be the head of. They use every trick at their disposal but Kramer is smarter and stronger than they ever expect.

Let me start by saying that Frost’s stories never cease to amaze me. This author’s brain works in such mysterious ways and I’m always fascinated in the premises that she comes up with time and again. That being said while many of the aspects of this book worked for me there were some that didn’t.

I love that Cat and Bones are stronger than ever. Their relationship has gone through a blender over the years and the fact that they are still so in love and stronger than a rock just makes me incredibly happy. Sure they have their moments of disagreement and frankly those are some of my favorites because A) It’s damn funny when they argue and B) It just shows how much they trust each other because they can get into each others faces and have it out and still not doubt their love for each other.

The fight scenes in this books were many and honestly, I loved them! They just worked for me on so many levels. It showed us the strength of the ghost that they were working against and it reemphasized Cat’s determination in fighting the bad guy. It did that by knocking her down but letting her get back up again and fight even harder.

The one major sex scene in the book was done while flying. Air sex. Who knew it could be so hot? Not me.

What didn’t work for me was one of the secondary characters, Tyler. Tyler was a huge help and funny at times but really, I found him more annoying than anything else. His presence after his initial introduction just didn’t work for me.

The other aspect of the book which was completely frustrating was the storyline with Cat’s dead uncle Don and the jerk head who took over his position in the security compound, James Madigan. Don knows this Madigan guy but never tells Cat and Bones how or even why he doesn’t trust the guy. Madigan has his own agenda – which is alluded to but it never goes farther than that. The main focus of the book was on the capture of Kramer the ghost which was fine but I hated being left in the dark when it came to Madigan because he is one bad egg.

Overall it was an entertaining read. I’ll more than likely continue with the series as I’ve liked what I’ve read so far.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Publisher: Avon, Harper CollinsGenres: Paranormal Romance

Tracy’s review of This Side of the Grave (Night Huntress #5) by Jeaniene Frost

Danger waits on both sides of the grave.

Half-vampire Cat Crawfield and her vampire husband Bones have fought for their lives, as well as for their relationship. But just when they’ve triumphed over the latest battle, Cat’s new and unexpected abilities threaten to upset a long-standing balance . . .


With the mysterious disappearance of vampires, rumors abound that a species war is brewing. A zealot is inciting tensions between the vampires and ghouls, and if these two powerful groups clash, innocent mortals could become collateral damage. Now Cat and Bones are forced to seek help from a dangerous “ally”—the ghoul queen of New Orleans herself. But the price of her assistance may prove more treacherous than even the threat of a supernatural war . . . to say nothing of the repercussions Cat never imagined.

It’s been six months since Cat was turned from half-vampire into fully fledged vampire but Cat being Cat things aren’t exactly normal. You see instead of surviving on blood from humans, she has to drink vamp blood and when she does she gets, for a time, the powers from the donor. (If she drinks blood from a telekinetic vamp, for example, she will then have telekinetic powers for a short time.) She is now considered, by some people – and especially head Ghoul, Apollyon – to be a threat to both vamps and ghouls. Apollyon wants to start a war against the vamps and is making Cat the focus of the issue.

Cat, Bones, Vlad, Mencheres and a few others get together and go a-huntin for Apollyon but can’t seem to locate him. Along the way Cat runs into some problems of her own with Marie, the ghoul queen, who has her own agenda.

In between fighting various beings and searching for the bad guy Cat returns to her old team and finds some highly emotional family issues that are completely unexpected.

While I ADORED books 1 & 2 in this series I haven’t liked books 3-5 quite as much. I’m usually one who prefers to have her HEA’s at the end of each book I read so I don’t usually read UF. This series was so good, however, I just wanted to read more and more about Bones and Cat.

With this story it started off really good and I was getting more excited about the story as I read. But then it just kind of fizzled out for me. But then when I least expected it, it became quite good again. This back and forth happened for me for most of the book. I realized that when the book got quite good it was either during fighting scenes or emotional scenes between Cat and Bones and/or Cat and her family members. There seemed to be a quite a lot of introspection in this story from Cat – and while I can appreciate that she needed to figure things out with her life, I just wasn’t as enraptured with those sections as I might have been.

Overall it was a good book, even with the highs and lows but not on the level, imho, as the books that started the series.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Series:

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.