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The Ars Numina series by Ann Aguirre
Once again, Ann Aguirre proves she can do any genre well when she sets her pen to it. I’d been taking a break from shifter-based books, so by the time I was finally like, “Whatever, it’s Ann Aguirre, I’ll read it,” all of the books in this series were out except the last one. This was fortunate, as I tore through them in all of point-five seconds.
Warning: heat level is H-O-T HOT. The first book is pretty tame on the smexy scale, but Book Two…*reviewer takes a moment to drink a glass of water and recover*…yeah. I do love it when an author proves you can have super hot level romance AND an amazing well-crafted plot.
If lots of sex in books is not your thing, you’ll want to skip this series, otherwise, go forth and have fun. The Leopard King is book one.
The Hidden Legacy books by Ilona Andrews
At some point, you will likely tire at how hard I fangirl over the husband-wife duo that is Ilona Andrews, but I really can’t help it if their books are like rolling every addictive substance into one enjoyable, book-shaped delivery package. If you’re in a paranormal romance reading slump, wishing someone would do something just a little different with the genre, READ HIDDEN LEGACY.
Set in an alternate-world Houston, TX, where powerful magic Houses wield enormous power, Nevada Baylor is a private investigator with hidden powers of her own. She gets swept up in the world of Prime magic users when the company who owns her business mortgage forces her to take on a high-risk case, and thus begins her involvement with the handsome, city-destroying, at times infuriating Connor “Mad” Rogan.
I am…embarrassed to admit how many times I’ve read these books. It may be the case that every time a new book in the series comes out, I reread the entire series right before that happens. I’ll allow you to do your own math.
The original trilogy starts with Burn for Me and follows Nevada and Rogan. The spinoff series, starting with Sapphire Flames, follows Nevada’s younger sister Catalina. Fans everywhere are waiting in suspense to see if the other sister, Arabella, will get her trilogy too. (Say yes, Ilona, say yes!)
The Alex Craft series by Kalayna Price
If you like your paranormal romance with a twist of fae, and you like your fae dark, untrustworthy, and brutal, look no further. Alex Craft, grave witch and occasional consultant for the police, gets caught up in the fae world in the course of one of her investigations.
Alex can talk to the dead, she’s friends with the exceptionally-sexy Death, and she’s working with the mysterious fae Falin. Can you guess where this love triangle is going? This is the first series I’ve read in a long time where I wasn’t irritated by the love triangle. I feel like there’s sometimes a tendency to make one of the love interests an obvious jerk, but we’re supposed to be interested in him anyway just because he’s hot (so not cool), the ultimate point being that we choose the “right” love interest in the end.
I was relieved when that didn’t happen here. The characters in the Alex Craft series are so fully-developed and well-written that the author gives us a nice love triangle where you can actually appreciate why Alex would be drawn to both Death and Falin. Add in that Alex can totally handle herself, and her interactions with Death and Falin are not all about them saving her, and the series is utter catnip to me.
Grave Witch is first.