The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3) Susan Dennard

 

The Whispering Night (Luminaries #3) 

By: Susan Dennard

Recommendation: 🌕🌕🌕🌕 - (Out of 5 🌕)

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy, Urban Fantasy

Length: 369 Pages

Age Range: 13-18 Years of Age

**Third book in the series. Not meant as a stand alone.**

Witches, Werewolves, and Hunters oh my! What an incredible ending to an amazing series. From the very first book, Susan Dennard had me hooked with her unique story that takes place in the fantasy realm. A group of hunters who's job it is to keep monsters, known as nightmares, from infiltrating the greater society. Making matters more complicated, the Hunters must also fight against a group of witches, called Diana's, who are using their magical powers to release an evil being.

Winnie Wednesday's family had been shunned from the Luminary society for the past four years due to her father being an accused Diana. Her mom lost her job and standing in the Hunter community and Winnie lost her two best friends, Erica and Jay. But, in the past month things have turned around. After proving herself in the Hunter trials, Winnie, her mom and brother are slowly being allowed back. Having found a box of birthday cards sent from her father, Winnie is convinced the cards are filled with clues and coded messages that will help her to prove his innocence. Following her father's clues has forced Winnie to dive deep into Luminary society, uncovering a number of large secrets. With the Nightmare Masquerade, a weeks long celebration set to take place in Hemlock Falls, Winnie hopes to bring her investigation to a close. Unfortunately, the masquerade only compounds Winnie's troubles and makes matters more complicated.

As this last installment of the Luminaries came closer and closer to it's ending I kept looking for clues to a potential spin-off. I really liked Winnie who was quirky and only desired to be taken back by her old friends and accepted within the Luminary society. Winnie doesn't really have the athletic qualities one would expect a Hunter to possess but somehow she managed to make it all work. I enjoyed the world in which the story took place. Dennard developed a rather large number of original creatures each with unique features and back stories. In the end, the morale of the entire series is one that the greater world could learn from: there is one world with many different beings and creatures living in it, at the end of the day we should all learn to work together for the greater good.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

'The Whispering Night' releases November 19, 2024. 

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Haunted, Kat Martin

 

Haunted 

By: Kat Martin

Recommendation: 🌕🌕 - (Out of 5 🌕)

Genre: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Paranormal

Length: 320 Pages

I was incredibly excited for this story. I do not have a lot of experience with Kat Martin other than a couple of books she has co-authored with authors I read. I had pre-ordered this book. Thought it was great timing to read a ghost story considering Halloween is at the end of the month. Add to that 'Haunted' is one of my favorite genres, historical fiction.

Unfortunately, the author's fixation on the weight of her characters was a huge turn off for me. I noted 13 times in which Martin referenced a heavyset or overweight character; all of them were female. The comments started as early as page 29 and I didn't tag all of them, just the ones that were blatantly obvious.

Here are a couple of examples....

Page 28, "Maria Delgado, a short woman, twenty pounds overweight,..."

Page 96, " She was a nice girl, a little overweight but working on it,..." 

Page 191, "Cleopatra was already there when Jenny arrived, a big woman, late sixties, close to three hundred pounds, with breasts the size of melons.....Cleo hoisted herself up off the burgundy horsehair settee in the lobby. Thankfully, it was a sturdy piece that had lasted for over a hundred years."

Poor Ms. Cleo, she was the main focus of the heavy weight commentary. Her double chins were mentioned twice and the furniture surviving her weight mentioned twice.

I understand describing a characters physique in order for the reader to create a picture while they read but I do not need to be told every time that Ms. Cleo's character enters a room that she has a weight issue. For someone of her statue she is quite mobile.

The icing on the cake is a main male character that can be at times a little too 'alpha'. I can't believe I just said that considering I am all about a strong, dominating, man. At one point in the story Cain, the MMC, admitted to Jenny, the FMC, that he already all there was to know about her from the back ground check his detective ran. Kind of creepy. Unfortunately, this wasn't as big of a deal breaker for Jenny and I thought it should be.

'Haunted' takes place in Jerome, a real town in Arizona. Jerome was once known as the Wickedest Town in the West and has a dangerous history as part of the wild west. Many of the historical characters and the events in their life found in Martin's story are factual. 'Haunted' is a work of fiction based on these true life events.

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