Fangs for the Fantasy

Jace is from an alternate reality and she has been brought to a world were vampires, werewolves, and golems make up the majority of the population.  Jace is tasked with finding and arresting Stoker, a rogue human determined to end the domination of the supernaturals and get justice for the dwindling human population.  Jace is sidetracked from that mission when a superhero created by the government is murdered.  When magical artifacts start to go missing the case intensifies.  Can Jace follow the clues from the comic world to find the killer?

My biggest complaint with this book is that there is simply too much going on.  I am not a fan of comic books and too much of this book focuses on breaking down comics to microscopic levels for clues.  Barant, who is obviously a fan of comics, did some name dropping of famous comic artists, weighed DC and Marvel against each other, and went into the story lines and origin stories of many superheros.  I suppose on some level this is meant to remind us of the similarity between Jace's originating world and the world she inhabits today, and the fact that they are connected but for me, it plain and simple just dragged on and on.

In Dying Bites, Jace had several men seemingly vying for her attention.  I liked that it never really became a paranormal romance type thing but in Death Blows, all of that disappears altogether.  There is one awkward date with Cassius at a save the human event.  I suppose this was meant to build the will they or won't they vibe but the fact that Cassius has "a thing" for humans is just super creepy - particularly after meeting his ex girlfriend.

In terms of character growth, we learned all about Dr.Pete's background and some of Cassius's past as a superhero.  It became clear that Jace had developed a really good working relationship with Charlie, though I would like to see them on a more social level at some point. Jace also really cares deeply for Rachel but despite all of the concern, I have yet to see the work that went into building that relationship.  If Death Blows had spent more time working on the relationships and less on the comic books and weird magical world building, it would have been a far more interesting book.

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