Blurb: Remember that old line about how the only way out of the organization is in a pine box?
Well, Rue Hollis spent ten years thinking she had escaped the Black Hat Bureau, no coffin required.
Then her former partner had to go and shatter the illusion by showing up on her doorstep with grim tidings. As much as Rue wants to kick him to the curb, she agrees to hear him out for old times’ sake, and what he says chills her to the bone.
The Silver Stag was the most notorious paranormal serial killer in modern history, and Rue brought him down. Now a copycat has picked up where the Stag left off, and the Bureau wants her on the case. She beat the Stag once. They think she can do it again. But they don’t know she’s given up black magic, and she’s not about to tell them. White witches are prey, and Rue is the hunter, not the hunted. Always.
But can she take down the protégé of the man who almost beat her at her black witch best?
If she wants to keep her new town, her new home, her new life, then she has no choice but to find out.
Review: Rue Hollis has spent the last decade hiding from her old life and nurturing her new one. Yet Black Hat doesn't let people go. Her former partner shows up with a case she can't say no to: the copycat of the Silver Stag serial killer. Rue was once a deadly agent, a black witch who people feared. Now she's trying very hard to be a white witch, but can a white witch take down a ruthless killer or will Rue lose everything she's worked hard to keep safe?
This is the first book in the fantastic urban fantasy series, Black Hat Bureau. The first bit confused me, making me feel like I had missed a whole other series of books. It seemed like there was a whole lifetime of stories about Rue, and now we're in her 'retirement' years. Even though she isn't that old! Yet the story became its own apart from the gigantic past. The plot nabbed me with the horrific crimes and mystery.
Rue looks like a human in her early twenties but isn't, and while in the realm of paranormals, she is still quite young, she carries a very protective mothery feel which I loved. She saved the soul of one of the victims, a child named Colby, and Colby now lives with Rue, bonded to her as her familiar. Colby is so real as a tween, and absolutely adorable not only because she's a big fuzzy moth. Every description of the moth I loved! Rue is also protective of the young women who work at her shop. Her former partner is Clay, a golem who is huge and powerful, but sweet as can be. His new partner, Asa, is a gorgeous dae -daemon and fae- and there is great tension between him and Rue, but it is a slow burn. No steam in this book, no matter how much I was wanting it.
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