Twilight (Twilight, #1) by Stephenie Meyer

 Twilight (Twilight, #1) by Stephenie Meyer-498 pages

⭐⭐⭐

Isabella (Bella) Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her biological dad, Charlie, who is the local sheriff, after her mom marries another man. Bella meets Edward Cullen and his family at the local high school. She immediately realizes there's something different about Edward and is drawn to him. It turns out that Edward is a part of a vampire coven that hunts only animals and not humans. Will Bella view Edward differently? Can Bella and Edward's relationship last? The dialogue is cringey at times and the writing/prose is not literary fiction, but I did mostly enjoy this despite that. 

THE BLACK BIRD ORACLE (All Souls #5) by DEBORAH HARKNESS

 THE BLACK BIRD ORACLE (All Souls #5) by DEBORAH HARKNESS (444)

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

I have liked every book in this series, but I  find myself getting annoyed by the immaturity and arrogance of the main protagonist, Diana Bishop.

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

 The Book of Life (The All Souls Trilogy #3) by Deborah Harkness - 561 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London. They left loved ones behind but have reunited with (most of) those in the present at Matthew's ancestral home. With Diana pregnant with twins and their enemies closing in, they must deal with secrets from Matthew's past being revealed while still searching for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages.

I like that she brought some characters we met in the past back into the story in the present. There were interesting and unexpected twists, and I thought she wrapped the story up well. The entire trilogy was extremely well written, and I loved all three books.

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

 Shadow of Night (The All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness - 584 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours, 30 minutes

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. Their adventure is not restricted to London as they also travel to other countries, and Diana discovers more than she ever imagined about cultures and daily life in 1590.

Their search for Ashmole 782 takes interesting turns while Diana uncovers more of Matthew's secrets while the search for a witch to tutor her in magic turns out to be much more difficult than Matthew thought it would be.

I LOVE this series. I struggled a little with the reaction one of the characters had to Diana, but once I got a little way into this 2nd book, I just wanted to keep listening to see what happened next.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches (The All Souls Trilogy #1) by Deborah Harkness - 579 pages, Audiobook - 24 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist, Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos.

I loved this book, and I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook and the different accents she used for the various characters. There are a lot of different characters and relationships between them, but she does a good job of making sure you know exactly what is going on with the various characters and groups. The ending definitely makes you want to start reading the next book in the series.

Keystone by Dannika Dark

Keystone by Dannika Dark - 10 hrs, 15 mins

Crossbreed series #1

 Raven Black hunts evildoers for fun, but her vigilante justice isn’t the only reason she’s hiding from the law. Half Vampire, half Mage, she’s spent years living as a rogue to stay alive. When a Russian Shifter offers her a job in his covert organization hunting outlaws, dignity and a respectable career are finally within her grasp. The catch? Her new partner is Christian Poe - a smug, handsome Vampire whom she’d rather stake than go on a stakeout with.

They're hot on the trail of a human killer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. One misstep during her probationary period could jeopardize Raven’s chance at redemption, and her partner would love nothing more than to see her fail. Will Raven find the courage to succeed, or will she give in to her dark nature?

 I had a hard time liking the main character. She is an angry person. In the end I liked the book enough to try the next in the series.

Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson #4) by Patricia Briggs - 309 pages

By day, Mercy is a car mechanic in the sprawling Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shapeshifter with some unique talents, Mercy has often found herself having to maintain a tenuous harmony between the human and the not so human. This time she may get more than she bargained for.

Marsilia, the local Vampire Queen, has learned that Mercy crossed her by slaying a member of her clan—and she's out for blood. But since Mercy is protected from direct reprisal by the werewolf pack (and her close relationship with its sexy Alpha), it won't be Mercy's blood Marsilia is after.

It'll be her friends'.

I'm still enjoying this series and would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys Urban Fantasy. 

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

 Moon Called by Patricia Briggs - 304 pages

1st in the Mercy Thompson series

Mercedes Thompson, aka Mercy, is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy's next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy's connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water.

I really enjoy this series. I read this series several years ago and decided to reread it. I am enjoying it on the second time around also. The author is still writing books in this series and I look forward to them when they come out.