Title: Grave Matters
Author: Lauren M. Roy
Series: Night Owls #2
Rating Out of 5: 3 (On the fence about this one)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Paranormal fantasy, Vampires
Pace: Slow
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace fantasy
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: They heard them before they saw them, the thunk, sssss of shoveling, the scrape of metal on wood.

Night Owls bookstore always keeps a light on and evil creatures out. But even its supernatural staff isn’t prepared for the dead to come back to life…

Elly grew up training to kill things that go bump in the night, so she’s still getting used to working alongside them. While she’s learned to trust the eclectic group of vampires, Renfields, and succubi at Night Owls bookstore, her new job guarding Boston’s most powerful vampire has her on edge – especially when she realizes something strange is going on with her employer, something deadlier than usual…

Cavale isn’t thrilled that his sister works for vampires, but he’s determined to repair their relationship, and that means trusting her choices – until Elly’s job lands all of the Night Owls crew in deep trouble with a vengeful necromancer. And even their collective paranormal skills might not be enough to keep them from becoming part of the necromancer’s undead army…

I honestly found this book incredibly difficult to get into. I even started reading it three times before I decided to bite the bullet, get over those first, not-so-attention-grabbing few chapters, and finish the book. Having said that, once the storyline got going, I did really want to find out how it all ended. After all, there is a psychotic necromancer running around Edgewood. But, it’s probably not a book (or even a series) that I am likely to pick up again anytime soon. Yet, it’s also not one that I am going to remove from my bookshelf.

My favourite aspect of this book is the relationships between the core characters. The care and love they have for one another is palpable as is the understanding that they show for one another’s eccentricities. Elly and Justin’s attraction to each other is the epitome of this – they see exactly what each other are, but still want to be a part of their relative lives.

There isn’t much I can say about this book, it wasn’t badly written, and the characters and setting were wonderful. Yet, there was something missing in the storyline that stopped it from being an alright read to something I will pick up again and again and again.

Image source: Lauren M. Roy

Title: Night Owls
Author: Lauren M. Roy
Series: Night Owls #1
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Paranormal fantasy, Vampires
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace fantasy
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: And they’d left the Clearwaters to die.

Night Owls bookstore is the one spot on campus open late enough to help out even the most practiced slacker. The employees’ penchant for fighting the evil creatures of the night is just a perk…

Valerie McTeague’s business model is simple: provide the students of Edgewood College with a late-night study haven and stay as far away as possible from the underworld conflicts of her vampire breathen. She’s experienced that life, and the price she paid was far too high for her to ever want to return.

Elly Garrett hasn’t known any life except that of fighting the supernatural beings known as Creeps or Jackals. But she always had her mentor and foster father by her side – until he gave his life protecting a book that the Creeps desperately wanted to get their claws on.

When the book gets stashed at Night Owls for safekeeping, those Val holds nearest and dearest are put in mortal peril. Now Val and Elly will have to team up, along with a mismatched crew of humans, vampires, and lesbian succubi, to stop the Jackals from obtaining the book and unleashing unnamed horrors…

This is a book about a book in a bookstore, which I just love saying, and writing. The poetry of such a story is kind of beautiful, and the setting of a college book store is gorgeous. Being involved in campus life can have many rewards when studying, but the idea of being able to go into a warm and secluded book store at all hours to buy, study and peruse different books is the stuff that dreams are made of. I’ve lost count of the amount of times that I have finished a book late at night, and just wished that I could run down to the shops to buy the next in the series.

One of my favourite things about this book (other than the bookstore) is that it is a simple, easy read. The pace is just fast enough to keep you engaged, but not so intense that putting the book down to do something more responsible is impossible. Although the story leaves more for future stories, there is a happy ending at the end of the novel.

Family is a great topic in novels, literacy and stories – it is something that everyone can relate to and sympathise with. Roy reminds us that family is sometimes the people we choose, not those that we are born to within Night Owls.

Image source: Goodreads