Everything changed when Raven, a natural born conduit, accidentally walks in on a slave auction. She only wants a night out with her friends before her next case as a paranormal liaison with the police. Instead, she ends up in possession of a shifter and his guardian. When your touch can kill, living with two touchy-feely shifters is a disaster waiting to happen. To make matters worse, a vicious killer is on the loose. As mutilated bodies turn up, she can’t help fear that her new acquisitions are keeping secrets from her. The strain of keeping everyone alive, not to mention catching the killer, pushes her tenuous control of her gift and her emotions to their limits. If they hope to survive, they must work together as a pack or risk becoming hunted themselves.
Title: Electric Storm (Raven Investigations #1)
Author: Stacey Brutger
Published: April 8th 2012 by Stacey Brutger
Genres: adult, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, vampires, shapeshifters, magic
This book is perfect example why even if I don’t usually read books with lower than average 3.75 Goodreads rating I don’t like to immediately give upon them. For a long time I didn’t read this book because of the ratings. Turns out I love the story which means this is one of the rare expectations.
I totally get why somebody would down rate this book because it has a couple of pretty big shortcoming especially regarding the world building. The author created a complex world for her story the problem is that there is no clear, adequate description of it in the book. Which means you have to piece together the puzzle pieces as the plot progresses going by the events and the conversations. It could be a good even a brilliant idea if done right. The characters were jumping between topics so fast and seemingly without rhyme and reason that I lost the train of thought a couple of times. Also the conversations, that were supposed to help introduce the world, were worded, created in a way like I should already know the specifics of the different supernatural, the rules and such, as it should be obvious but from where it’s a big question. So yea I didn’t know half the time what was going on. It was confusing as hell but strangely I enjoyed it still.
The plot is really busy, intense, and fast paced and dynamic but at the same time a bit jumbled and hard to follow. It was a race against time and the little different plot threads, Raven’s cases, just kept appearing and piling up. However the writing style is surprisingly easy to read, flows seamlessly and engaging. It sucked me in with the first pages.
I liked most of the characters. Raven is really powerful but her powers and past forced her into a solitary existence. She rarely interacts with others on a personal level fearing the consequences. She lives with a deep seated loneliness weighting her down. She has a lot of power which constantly changes not letting her gain full control. I think she is a bit too powerful for it being the first book, easily winning all of her battles. She also has a lot of secrets but her big heart leads her into compromising situations. She does a lot of things despite her better judgment. What I didn’t like about her was that she takes a lot of risks for the stupidest reason, choosing the most damning possibilities without considering her options. She is also a bit easy to manipulate.
Then there are her boys, and she got quite a few of them. Practically in the cures of a couple of chapters from loner her house goes to a hunk central.
There is Jackson, the guardian who is closed off, gruff and scary but Raven has a soft spot for him. Or Taggert the sweet, innocent looking boy, with his hard past. Or Rylan the sexy, brooding vampire. Durant the alluring tiger and I just could go on like this. What’s interesting that neither of their character is too deeply developed yet all of them gives something to the story and you just know that they all have a lot of hidden layers to discover later. However their domineering personality pissed me off. Raven proved time and time again that she can protect herself yet they insist on treating her as a delicate flower and following her everywhere. Supposedly for her protection but most of the times they were the problem, the reason she ended up in a sticky situation might I add.
Also there is a really noticeable and string sexual tension brewing between her and a lot of her boys, but they don’t step over the line and stay in the teasing stage.
There is certain level of confusion following the storyline but the dynamic of the plot just keep you going and drags you along the ride. I really enjoyed Electric storm it’s a thrilling read which ends in a high note.
She looked at them, saw all the beauty and strength, saw the aching loneliness and the need to be needed God, she couldn’t stand to do nothing. She’d go insane. She desperately wanted to be like everyone else and walk the street without fear, without searching for danger. To dare touch someone without having them look at her with terror. That would never happen for her, but she could make sure others were safe by doing her job.
She liked them better when they were at odds. “I’m working on a case. I go where the answers are.”
“And damn the consequences?
