Baldr's Secret Mate

Blake R Wolfe
Completed 11/26/2025, Reviewed 11/26/2025
4 stars

This third and final volume in the Mated to the Viking Alpha series is a surprisingly terrific ending to the trilogy.  The plot closely resembles that of the second book, Loki’s Enemy Mate.  However, it also provides a stunning conclusion to the conflict between the three brothers and Tyr, the maniacal leader of the rival pack.  I was impressed by the imagination of the author and his ability to incorporate Norse mythological concepts besides the characters’ names.  Yeah, it’s still a spicy M/M romantasy, but it transcends the mundane for an exciting climax.  It almost relies on a deus ex machina.  I won’t explain how because of spoilers, but I will say that the conclusion is more powerful than I expected.  

In the last book, we discover that Tyr is grooming and abusing a boy witch with amazing but uncontrolled chaotic powers as a secret weapon to destroy the brothers and their pack.  Unbeknownst to Tyr, Baldr, the third brother who is part werewolf part witch, has been visiting the boy, named Mist.  Every day, Baldr sits outside the dome and keeps Mist company, reading science fiction and fantasy and telling him about his pack.  He does this because Baldr has visions of his impending death and Mist is part of that vision.  In the process, Baldr gets the strong sense that Mist is his fated mate.  The two fall in love, but of course they hide it from each other, as they have no way to break through the dome.  After a devastating attack on the spa, Baldr finds his mother’s spell book and finds a way to cut into the dome to free Mist.  But Tyr catches them in the act and Baldr opens a portal into which they escape.  They end up in a different dimension.  The two must find a way back to their home dimension and put an end to Tyr’s rampage against the brothers.

Baldr is the gentlest brother of the three.  Having a different mother than Thor and Loki, and being part witch with terrible visions of the future, Baldr has developed into a kind, sensitive werewolf.  His flaw is that he believes he can’t allow himself to fall in love because he has seen his own death in the battle against Tyr.  He keeps this info from Mist, hoping to prevent him from being hurt when Baldr’s death comes about.  However, when he and Mist escape from the dome into the other dimension, they can’t help the natural progression of their love for each other.  The strength they derive from their mating helps them survive getting back home where they try to put together a plan to end Tyr’s tyranny once and for all.

I have to say that I was surprised and pleased with the plot of these books.  What I first thought would be silly, sexy fluff turned out to be very satisfying.  Yeah, the spicy parts are good, but ultimately, you want art.  While not as prosy as, say, Fourth Wing, this trilogy was well thought out and integrated Norse mythology more than just using the names of the gods.  The characters have depth and inner conflict and embody the characteristics of the mythical beings they are named after.  Even Tyr, the violent sociopath, turns out deliciously evil in how he manipulates the fear in all the good characters.  I give this book a surprising four stars out of five.  While not a literary masterpiece, it is surprisingly well constructed with a terrific ending.  For full enjoyment, I suggest if you read these books, look up all the names of the characters as you come across them.  It will give you insight into the characters’ personalities, motivation, and flaws.  This was definitely a good find.   

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir
Completed 11/23/2025, Reviewed 11/25/2025
5 stars

Like The Martian, this book was an exercise in using science to solve problems in space.  While The Martian was engineering-based solutions, this book was based on pure science.  It’s perhaps the reason that I absolutely loved this book.  It was thrilling and fast-paced.  The characters were multi-dimensional.  And it was a book of hope.  It’s a first contact novel where both the human and the alien person cooperated to solve an apocalyptic problem affecting both their home planets.  It didn’t follow the trope of the alien being superior or inferior.  Instead, the human was better at pure science and the alien was better at engineering the solutions.  I found it an exhilarating experience.  This book was nominated for a 2022 Hugo Award.

Ryland Grace wakes up with almost total amnesia.  He doesn’t know who or where he is.  His two companions are dead, desiccated to mummy-like remains.  In the first 50 or so pages, he wanders around trying to piece together what’s going on.  Through a long series of sudden flashbacks, he finds out his name and that he is on a spaceship to figure out how to stop tiny organisms from feeding off the sun, which is causing quick cooling on Earth.  Once he gets close to the destination star, a star that seems to have those organisms without suffering any loss, he spots an alien craft.  He approaches the craft and sees a creature inside.  Through a series of gestures, he approaches.  The alien builds a tunnel between the crafts.  When they meet, they do so between a wall to separate their atmospheres.  The alien lives in an ammonia heavy atmosphere twenty-nine times that of Earth.  They slowly learn to communicate.  The alien speaks in music and uses touch and perhaps something sonar-like to see.  Grace uses a spreadsheet and music software to create a rudimentary dictionary as they communicate with music and touching through the wall.  Once they’re successful, Grace discovers the alien, whom he names Rocky, is there for the same reason.  Together they try to find the solution, Grace with his superior science background, and Rocky with his excellent engineering skills.  But as Grace’s memory continues to return, he finds out the devastating truth of his involvement in the mission.

The progress of the relationship between Grace and Rocky is amazingly well-crafted.  Weir wrote a near perfect first contact story.  They find a way to communicate despite the vast differences in their makeup and senses.  They are nearly equal in intelligence.  Each knows some things the other doesn’t.  And both are willing to give their all to find the solution that will save their home planets.  It was interesting that both are in similar circumstances.  The other two crew members on Grace’s ship died during the journey while in medically induced comas.  Rocky came with 23 other crew members and all of them died for unknown reasons.  Grace figures out why they died, having more knowledge of the dangers of space travel.  Rocky, on the other hand, is the better engineer, having the knowledge and equipment to create the solutions Grace proposes.  Rocky also is the better linguist, figuring out how to speak in idiomatic American English through his musical language.  It’s all quite remarkable and believable how they come to a partnership with a common goal and eventually become friends.

I also found the use of the amnesia to justify the flashbacks to be masterful.  It spread the info dumps over the course of the plot with Grace and Rocky, eventually revealing an amazing twist that could completely derail Grace’s motivation to succeed.   Flashbacks can be clunky.  Here, they were perfect.  They also introduce other characters from Earth, from the early days of the discovery of the organisms to the launching of the Project Hail Mary spacecraft.  The major character handling the crisis was named Stratt.  She was basically made a god-like program manager by the UN, forcing the project to move forward regardless of the cost in money, resources, and lives.  She has a great statement later in the book that when this is over, she’s probably going to jail for her iron fist approach and reckless spending.  However, it’s all justified in that she has to make this happen to save the Earth.  

I give this book five out of five stars.  I was completely sucked into Grace and Rocky’s psyches.  Though the book is narrated in first person by Grace, Rocky was just as loveable.  And the ending is incredibly uplifting.  I won’t give it away, but it’s awesome.  This book is very readable, with easy prose and science told in layman’s terms.  I CLEP’ed out of college biology 45 years ago but still understood everything that was going on.  I read this for online book club and it had 100% agreement on liking the book, which is very unusual.  Some people pointed out some flaws, but I thought they were far overshadowed by the spirit and execution. 2022 was a year with some excellent nominees for the Hugo Award.  I wouldn’t have minded at all if this book had taken the award.  

300,000 Hits!!

Wow, I can’t believe I got another hundred-thousand hits in less than six months!  For all the real people out there reading my blog, Thanks So Very Much!!  I’ve been cranking through an awful lot of books.  Having been unemployed now for just over four months, I have a lot of extra energy to devote to reading.  As promised, I’ve started on some gay romantasy, alternating with more reputable titles😂.  And I’m getting through books I picked up at Seattle WorldCon...which was awesome!  Well, I did get sick, probably COVID even though I never tested positive for it.  I’m still planning to go WorldCon next year in Anaheim and Montreal in 2027.  

Anyway, thanks again to my loyal followers.  I hope this blog gives you some ideas for your own reading pleasure.  

Loki’s Enemy Mate

Blake R Wolfe
Completed 11/18/2025, Reviewed 11/23/2025
3 stars

Second book in the Mated to the Viking Alpha series.  Another spicy M/M romantasy featuring the second werewolf brother Loki.  This book began more seriously than Thor’s Unexpected Mate and ends with an intense cliffhanger.  The overarching plot is more complex than I expected.  I have to give the author props for coming up with tragic family dynamics that make this short novel better than simple erotica.  The prose is straight forward and the enemies to lovers trope is well done.  

At the end of the last book, Loki left the family to get revenge on Tyr by himself against Thor and Baldr’s wishes.  He can’t handle that Thor has mated with a descendent of werewolf hunters.  He goes to confront Tyr who is out with his son Heimdall.  Tyr commands Heimdall to kill Loki.  During the fight, the ground opens up below them, leaving them trapped in a cave.  Tyr just walks away.  When they recover, they begrudgingly cooperate to escape.  In the process, an attraction between them grows, realizing they are fated to be mates.  Once consummated, they realize they have to compromise over what to do with Tyr.  Loki wants him dead, but Heimdall doesn’t, being his son.  And we know Tyr isn’t going to accept their relationship.  So they must come up with a plan to punish Tyr without killing him so that they can bring the two families together.

I was impressed by how well the author got Loki to go from angry, bitter, and grieving to realizing how he let his emotions put a wall between himself and his family.  The softening process takes most of the search for an exit from the cave.  It’s slow, steady, and more believable than I expected.   Heimdall, on the other hand, is quite the sensitive soul.  He cries easily and allows himself to feel his emotions.  Despite blindly believing in Tyr, he also undergoes a transformation.  He comes to recognize his father is not a good person, and is in fact, a brutal, narcissistic murderer.  But cognitive dissonance remains, which is what softens Loki’s drive for vengeance.  

Most of the action takes place in the cave.  It’s quite claustrophobic for the characters and the reader, as they try to avoid gaping holes in the floor while looking for an exit, all with a single cell phone’s flashlight feature.  This book is just over 200 pages, but it takes its time with changing belief systems and plotting ways to stay together as mates, despite what their families may say.  I give it three stars out of five.  It’s intense and sensitive and occasionally fun.  I’m looking forward to the next book wrapping everything together.  

Brigands and Breadknives

Travis Baldree
Completed 11/17/2025, Reviewed 11/17/2025
4 stars

This is the official sequel to Legends and Lattes.  Baldree’s other book, Bookshops and Bonedust, was a prequel.  This book features Fern, the owner of the bookshop in the prequel.  She has a foul mouth and is discontented.  This is her accidental exploration of what she does and does not want to do with the rest of her life.  It’s another cozy fantasy, although there’s more action than in the first two.  I didn’t feel very engaged with it until the end when I wished it would go on.  I think books about discontent make me feel discontent, even with the book itself.  It is almost meta, where I have the same feelings of the main character to the point that I stay as disengaged as they do.  This book was just released and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  I really like Baldree’s prose.  I think he has become the epitome of the cozy fantasy genre, the way I feel that TJ Klune has become the epitome of cozy LGBTQ+ fantasy.

Unhappy where she is, Fern sells her bookstore from her sleepy coastal home in Murk in hopes that Viv, the Orc owner of the Legends and Lattes coffee shop, will welcome her and help her start a new bookshop in Thune.  However, Fern quickly becomes restless again.  She has a night out drinking with Cal, the handyman, revealing her dilemma and gets quite drunk.  She tries to wander home but ends up passed out in a parked carriage.  Next thing she knows, she’s riding with the legendary Astryx, a thousand-year-old elf with a long, storied past as a mercenary and bounty hunter.  Astryx has captured a goblin named Zyll who is wanted in a town about three days away.  With Thune already being a day and a half behind them by carriage, Fern reluctantly agrees to go with them rather than try to walk back alone through the dangerous woods.  This time away gives Fern the opportunity to reflect on her life choices and determine if she really wants to go back to the bookshop in Thune and Viv’s generous circle of friends.  However, Zyll is being pursued by other bounty hunters, putting the party in continuous danger.  

Fern is quite an interesting character.  She’s depressed with no sense of what will satisfy her restless longing for something else.  Astryx is famous throughout the land.  Fern has read many stories about Astryx’s exploits and is excited to be part of an adventure.  But again, she questions her decision to remain in the party once they begin encountering danger.  However, she more or less bonds with the aloof elf, becoming a sort of squire, although she doesn’t exactly feel worthy. She’s exhilarated and terrified with each attack on the party.  She constantly questions herself and her motives, but is always intrigued by Astryx, Zyll, and the other creatures they meet.  

Astryx is larger than life and two dimensional to Fern, but there’s more to Astryx than meets the eye.  It takes a while, but her depth comes forth as the bond between the two women tighten.  While I thought Astryx was pretty cool, I found Zyll to be much more fun and entertaining.  The goblin wears a patchwork jacket with tons of pockets.  Zyll regularly reaches into her pockets which are much deeper than they appear and retrieves something that the party needs to escape their pursuers.  She feigns not speaking the common tongue and surprisingly disappears from the carriage, free from her bonds, only to return later with her hands once again tied together.  Zyll is a mystery, but fun and amazing to the reader and Fern and Astryx.  She has a penchant for stealing silverware and kitchen utensils.  Her antics and insights made the moroseness of Fern and the aloofness of Astryx seem tolerable and humorous.  

Besides Zyll, comedy arises from the talking sword and breadknife.  Nigel and Breadlee, respectively, were imbued with sentience during forging and are powerful weapons.  However, they are also overly chatty and stuffy with foppish egos.  Nigel prides himself by being the sword of Astryx while Breadlee, a former sword diminished to a breadknife, is jealous of Nigel and wants to be the primary weapon of the elf.  They provide commentary that’s both hilarious and annoying.  Fortunately, Baldree knew how to use them in the right amounts throughout the narrative so that they weren’t as obnoxious to the reader as they were to the main characters.  

I basically saw the end coming, though the adventures and self-discovery were a good journey for me as the reader as well as for the three main characters.  Though I had trouble getting into the story in general, I didn’t want it to end as much as Astryx and Fern didn’t want it to end.  Despite being chased by dangerous bounty hunters trying to steal or kill Zyll, the book is still a cozy fantasy.  I enjoy Baldree’s prose and the universe he created.  I give this book four out of five stars.

Thor’s Unexpected Mate

Blake R Wolfe
Completed 11/11/2025, Reviewed 11/16/2025
3 stars

Fun M/M supernatural werewolf romantasy that easily engaged me.  It’s not as profound as the TJ Klune Green River series featuring Wolfsong, but it held its own.  It’s cute and steamy with an interesting story.  The prose is decent and the world-building a bit unusual.  But I enjoyed it and will read the rest of the series.  

Flynn has moved to Fenris to live with his grandmother for a while.  She’s a feisty widow living in the mountains.  She’s somewhat estranged from her daughter but gets along great with Flynn.  Flynn is out to his grandmother, who loves and supports him.  He often goes on hikes on the mountain to have some alone time, but Grandma always warns him to watch for wolves.  However, there haven’t been wolves on the mountain in years.  What is there, though, is a sprawling spa for the well-to-do.  On one hike, Flynn takes a fall and hurts his leg.  Before he passes out, he sees a great white wolf approach him.  It turns out to be Thor, the alpha of a pack of werewolves.  Thor and his brothers own the spa.  Flynn wakes up at the spa and is being healed by Thor.  The moon goddess has revealed to Thor that Flynn is his fated mate, despite not being a werewolf.  This causes commotion with the brothers, the rest of the pack, and most importantly, the evil alpha of a rival pack who is out to kill Thor.

The most unusual thing about this book is that Thor and his brothers own a fancy spa.  Their father recognized that to survive in the present, they must adapt and interact with humans.  The spa generates income so the pack can live “normal” lives instead of scavenging out in the wild like their rival clan.  That clan eschews anything modern and human.  Thor continues the family legacy of adaptation, especially in light of his fated attraction to Flynn.  

Like most M/M supernatural romantasies, the male characters are generally physically amazing.  Flynn is a twunk (hunky twink) and Thor is a hot daddy bear.  What made Thirsty stand out for me was that the gay main character is a little chubby.  It’s more realistic and the characters more complex.  This book is a very basic gay male sexual fantasy.  It’s not bad, just a little too typical.  As for character development, I was surprised that it was pretty decent.  There’s a big twist about Flynn’s ancestry which caught me off guard, and it enhanced the story nicely.  

I give this book three stars out of five.  It’s fun, quick paced, steamy, and exciting.  It ends rather nicely without a cliffhanger, but it is obviously set up to be a series.  I recommend this to anyone who likes steamy gay romantasy and werewolves.  Note:  my DnD character is a gay werewolf 😊

What Stalks the Deep

T Kingfisher
Completed 11/10/2025, Reviewed 11/16/2025
4 stars

Third in the Sworn Soldier series, this book was pretty good, but again, like What Feasts at Night, not as perfect as What Moves the Dead.  This novella is very creepy, as it mostly takes place in an abandoned coal mine.  Kingfisher’s prose once again is the star as it makes the exploring of the cave so very claustrophobic.  The past books were nods to Poe and local folklore.  This one is a nod to the Chthulu mythos.  It’s a satisfying read.  It just didn’t grab my whole being.

Alex Easton, the gender fluid soldier from Gallacia, and her trusty companion Angus begrudgingly sail to America at the request of James Denton, the doctor whom they befriended in the first book.  Denton’s cousin Oscar went missing in a coal mine in West Virginia. The mine had stopped producing coal a while ago and has been rumored to be haunted.  Oscar’s companion survived but is now living in an alcoholic stupor in the town near the mine.  So Denton, Easton, Angus, and Denton’s Boston companion John Ingold retrace Oscar’s steps and find mysterious lights and slushing sounds.  They also find that there has been a recent spate of gruesome deaths nearby that may be linked to the missing Oscar.

I love the characters of Easton and Angus.  It turns out that Easton is somewhat claustrophobic.  When crawling through tight spaces, their inner dialogue alone gets them through the ordeal.  Angus continues to be a wonderful companion who almost always can anticipate Easton’s needs.  I like the fact that no one can pinpoint his age or nationality.  I picture him as kind of a big daddy bear.  Denton was harder to appreciate this time.  I like him in the first book, but here, he’s less level-headed.  I guess that’s appropriate considering he holds onto the hope that Oscar is still alive.  Still, I felt like he was too irrational for the situation.  I really liked Ingold.  He was obsessed with the science behind the cave and the strange findings within.  He’s described as a person who is not just content with an answer but must continue to drill down into the details to learn as much as possible.

This being another novella, it’s hard to explain too much without spoilers.  But the creature stalking the deep is surprisingly well described, despite being very esoteric.  And I did like that there was a good creature and a bad creature.  It made for a thrilling ending.

I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s really good, but not for the claustrophobic.  It spends a lot of time in the mine and there’s quite a bit of body horror.  But if you are into horror, I think you’ll be satisfied with this.  T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is one of my favorite authors these days.  I’ll continue reading this series and I’m sure I’ll read more of her other works in the future.  

Long Live Evil

Sarah Rees Brennan
Completed 11/9/2025, Reviewed 11/12/2025
4 stars

I found this book highly entertaining.  It’s about a woman who is transported into her favorite book.  However, she ends up as the major evil female character.  It’s a great riff on the nature of good and evil.  She tries to advance the plot without being totally bad, but the plot keeps adjusting to the changes she makes.  The writing is terrific, and the author throws a lot of great snarky commentary.  I found it a fast, exciting read.  My only complaint is that I thought this was a standalone book.  Instead, there’s an incredible cliffhanger.  I nearly threw my e-reader across the room!  Argh!  Well, I’m sucked in now and will have to read the sequel when it comes out…in SIX MONTHS!

Rae is a twenty-year-old with stage four cancer.  One night, a woman appears and gives her the option to jump into her favorite fantasy series.  Her mission is that if she finds a special flower which only blooms once a year, she will be cured of the cancer.  Until she does, she’s stuck in the fantasy world.  Rae agrees and finds herself in the body of the villainous Rahela who is to be executed the next morning.  She joins with her mistrusting maid and her sketchy, possibly psychopathic guard to find a way out of the execution.  She succeeds, but then she has to navigate the plot to make sure everyone who hooks up does and who succeeds does.  The problem is that she is known as the Beauty Dipped in Blood, an unreliable, promiscuous, and generally evil person.  So no one trusts her.  However, she does find another person who is also from the real world.  That person works with her to get to the magical flower.  But nothing goes as she remembers from the book and chaos ensues.

Rae is quite the impressive character.  When she first enters the fantasy world, she’s excited about being the villain, although she has to survive and get past the execution order.  She pretends to be an oracle and proceeds to give away the end of the book.  That gets her past the first day, so she has fun with it all.  The problem is, she doesn’t view the other characters as real since she is in a fictional universe.  The other characters’ lives don’t matter and has a flippant view of their deaths.  All that matters to her is that the plot continues.  In reality, this is the definition of psychopathic behavior.  However, things do start to become real to her.  So when her interference to make the plot progress changes the plot, it affects the characters around her and she begins to have feelings about them.  And, as it progresses, they go from being cardboard to multi-dimensional.  It’s an interesting evolution of Rae and the reader.

As for those side characters, the Cobra is probably the most fun.  Flamboyant and superficial, he seems to have his hand in everything.  Emer, Rae’s maid, is one of the most interesting.  Besides Rae, we get narrative POV from her, so we witness firsthand her transformation from cardboard to real.  Oh yeah, and she wields an axe.  There are so many fantasy stock characters in the story, it’s quite fun.  It’s almost like it’s the author’s “Game of Thrones” but sprinkled with meta and snarky comments throughout.

I’d like to share a few of these comments:

“Rae had always assumed Anonymous [the author of the book inside the book] was a woman trying to avoid being pigeonholed.  Sometimes women writers got discussed as if they ran a fictional vampire dating agency, while clearly men writing green, bare-breasted tree women burned with pure literary inspiration. “

“She believed he wasn’t a monster.  He lacked empathy, went into a dissociative state and killed people serially, that was all.”

“Rahela’s lady mother had many uses for men.  They could be seduced for state secrets, married for money and estates, and poisoned to relieve one’s feelings.”

“He was the Emperor, so she would love him when he went through blood and fire and character development.”

These had me rolling on the floor.  But there’s a lot of seriousness as well.  Mainly, what really is good and evil?  This may make it difficult for some people to read.  For me, I found that some of the characters being deliciously evil made it more fun.  I think it also has a message about the fluidity of identity as well as that appearances may be deceiving.  This is evidenced by the Rae and others who were real people sent to the fantasy world.  Their characters obviously changed when they entered their bodies.  And of course, it changes the other characters’ reality as well.  

I give this book four out of five stars.  I found it fun and fascinating.  Watching the characters react and change around her was an impressive feat.  I guess there’s a big craze for this kind of meta fantasy in Japan.  But this was new for me, so I was entranced.  Next comes the long wait until the sequel comes out.  Ugh!

Thirsty

Lucy Lehane
Completed 11/2/2025, Reviewed 11/3/2025
4 stars

Very engaging M/M vampire-human, enemies to lovers, urban romantasy.  What I liked best about it was the exploration of other supernatural communities.  Well, and yes, the romance.  One of the main characters is not a traditional hot male, but rather a bear: bearded and a little chubby.  But the physical wasn’t as important as the emotional connection, and I really appreciated and honored that.  This book is very readable.  It’s also fun and silly at times, while tackling the issues of blood family, found family, honesty, and intent.  This isn’t going to win any awards, I don’t think, but I just might win Lehane an army of fans.

Charlie writes an advice column called the Wise Old Crone.  It’s been losing readership now that other advice columns are tackling the recent coming out of the supernatural community.  Charlie has no knowledge of vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, unicorns, trolls, and the like.  One day, he runs into Lorenzo, a man who dated a friend of his in college.  Charlie advised her to end the relationship with Lorenzo because she wasn’t that into him.  Now, five years later, Lorenzo still carries the grudge against Charlie.  Lorenzo confronts him, demanding to know why he did it, and if it was because he was a vampire.  Charlie didn’t know he was a vampire and tries to apologize, but sees an opportunity.  He convinces Lorenzo to answer questions about vampire-human relationships in exchange for running errands for him during daylight hours under the guise of it being for a “research paper” for Charlie’s dissertation.  Lorenzo begrudgingly accedes. Soon the two are attending supernatural functions of all types. With this information, the Wise Old Crone column becomes a hit and of course, the two slowly develop feelings for one another.  But can this relationship last when it is based on Charlie’s lie?

I was impressed with the character development of both Charlie and Lorenzo.  Charlie is simply a charming guy.  He loves life and helping people.  Lorenzo is terse and solitary.  Over two hundred years old, he’s bored with his vampire life and would rather have nothing to do with Charlie, or most people for that matter.  Charlie slowly falls for Lorenzo, but tries to keep it casual knowing that their relationship is based on the “research paper” lie.  He stresses over this and won’t admit he’s falling in love.  Lorenzo finds his heart opening up to Charlie despite his resentment over his old girlfriend’s rejection.  Charlie’s innocence and sense of wonder tug at Lorenzo.  But he too has a secret, besides the fact that he rarely opens his heart to anyone.  The play between falling in love and cognitive dissonance is very well played throughout the story.

The cast of side characters is also wonderful.  Lorenzo lives in a big house with a troll, a human possessed by a poltergeist, and a unicorn in human form.  They each have their own quirks and add color and humor to the story.  Lorenzo takes Charlie to a werewolf wedding, a druid initiation ceremony, and succubus/incubus art opening, among others.  Almost every chapter is chock full of new supernaturals for Charlie, and the reader, to learn about.  

I only had a few minor complaints about the book.  First, the narrative is third person, alternating between Charlie and Lorenzo per chapter.  Sometimes, it was hard to remember whose perspective was being told, even though the two characters are very different.  Second, the resolution was awfully quick.  I thought it could have played out a little more.  Still it was satisfying and a little surprising.

I give this book four stars out of five because it is terrific fluff.  I love a good romantasy.  The angst isn’t too deep, but the passion is powerful.  I particularly loved Charlie’s desire to be bitten for the increased intimacy while fighting his reluctance over his lie about the advice column.  And I loved Lorenzo’s slow turn from hermit to recognizing found family.  A very satisfying book even if it is a little silly.