Musings and Ramblings

Phoenix in My Fortune



Monster Haven, #6
R.L. Naquin



Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Carina Press
Date of Publication: March 2, 2015
Number of pages: 180

When Zoey Donovan found out monsters are real, her life changed—mostly for the better. Since then, she's fought bad guys, saved the world a time or two and earned the love of a growing family of humans and Hidden creatures alike. But the danger that's chased her from the beginning is finally here.

Shadow Man, aka The Last Hidden, has stepped out of the story humans wrote for him and into the real world, hell-bent on stealing children. Fiction has become reality and Shadow Man intends to break the Covenant, reclaim the Hidden, and kill all Aegises along the way…triple bad news for Zoey and her mother, the only two Aegises still alive.

Zoey will have to rescue the stolen kids and hunt down the most terrifying villain humanity has ever imagined. But how can she fight a creature only invented a few years ago? If Shadow Man triumphs, the world as she knows it will end. If Zoey succeeds in driving him out, the people she loves the most may be lost to her forever.

Quote: 
I pulled out, singing made-up words to a song on the radio I’d never heard before. At the end of the driveway, I stopped to check for cars and prepared to turn left.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a figure staring at me. No. I felt it more than I saw it. Something impossibly tall and thin and dark. I whipped my head around to see it, but there was nothing there. The figure was gone.

Goosebumps covered my arms and sweat broke out on my upper lip. I shivered.

Nothing there, Zoey. What the hell is wrong with you?

Nothing there. Whatever I’d thought I’d seen clearly wasn’t there. Yet I didn’t believe that for a minute. Hungry or not, I backed the car up and returned to the house.

As I pulled in, Riley shut off the hose he’d been spraying to try to return my grass to its natural color. “Forget something?”

I stepped out of the car, my body shaking. “I saw him.”

Riley’s face paled. “Are you sure?”

He didn’t bother to ask who I’d seen.

I nodded, paused, shook my head, paused, then nodded again.

He dropped everything and came to wrap his arms around me. “Well, shit.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I guess the reprieve is over.”

I buried my face in his shirt and my voice was muffled. “I’m not ready.”

“We’re as ready as we can be. We’ve beaten everything that’s come before. We’ll be okay.”

He was right, of course. We’d beaten a hungry incubus intent on devouring every woman I came in contact with. We’d beaten the Leprechaun Mafia and a sorceress who’d tried to auction off all the Hidden to the highest bidder. We’d beaten the most powerful empath the world had known and a cult of Shadow Man’s worshippers attempting to set off the zombie apocalypse.

Knowing all this didn’t mean I believed we were ready. This was it. The end of the line. The Last Hidden had stepped into the world, and he was there to destroy it. 

Review: 

This is the last book in the series. If you haven't discovered the wonderful world of Zoey and the Hidden before now - Congratulations you officially missed the boat! Especially if you have been reading my blog for any length of time. All have been featured on the blog, and all but book 4, Golem in My Glovebox have been Quote-Tastic picks.

As the last book in the series, I really, really don't want to give any spoilers away. Let's just say that our girl Zoey has come a extremely long way and I am so proud of her. There are some serious tough times in this book, and yet she has grown and matured enough to mostly handle everything being dealt to her.

All of our favorites from previous books make appearances and even though I was sad about how things ended, they made sense in the Monster Haven World. Some of the clues that were dropped were obvious and others I never did quite understand, but so goes the ways of fortunes and oracles. There was a beautiful symmetry to the ending of the book from the beginning of the series, that left me with a smile on my face and wishing Zoey and friends a Happily Hidden After. I am finishing this series off as a 5 star read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Carina Press for the opportunity to read and review the book.