My new spin friends suggested this series to me a few months ago. I listened to the first book (Loving a Vampire is Total Chaos) first and loved it. I didn’t realize it was a series at first though. And then I got to the end of this book and was super sad that the third (and final I think) book isn’t out until December.
So “total chaos” is really a good description of this series. The characters in the first book – Zav (a stalker crazy vamper) and Celine (a former detective and current ?) are in this book too. The main character Ava is Celine’s best friend and neighbor. At the end of the first book a vampire that Seline was trapped in a cell with Valen realizes that Ava is his mate. This is a supernatural book, so there are “mates” instead of like a husband or whatever. It’s fine, it just makes me think of “mating”, which is creating children, and as a child-free by choice woman it gave me a bit of the ick. I love this series anyway.
Ava finds out through Valen that she’s actually a witch. Valen has a lot of sad / powerful / interesting backstory, and Ava is adopted, so she’s learning a bit of her backstory too. I liked the way Ava and Valen get to know each other. Also, I’ve never read a story before where the male character wants to take relationship things slowly because of trauma. I’m so used to it being a woman who had trauma and has sex / touch / relationship issues. It was a refreshing change of pace (is it weird that I’m calling someone’s trauma refreshing?).
The story almost could’ve been just the four characters interacting with each other, but there’s also a supernatural war brewing. It made me want to read the third book. Oh there’s also another vampire who gets bound (like magically) to a demon, and their story is in the next book. Everyone is unhinged, but their hearts are so full of love and care for the world. If you can, listen to the audiobook. The voice talent is good and gets you into the vibe of the story. Four stars.
