Josh Reviews an ARC: Secrets of the Fog by Jaye Shields

Title: Secrets of the Fog Series: Immortals in Alameda #1 Author: Jaye Shields Publisher: Crimson Romance Format: eBook, 111 pages Published: October 29 2012 ISBN #: 9781440558276 / 1440558276 Genre: Paranormal Romance My Copy: From Author Rating: Buy: A-Sexual Goddess + Giant Tree = Dryad. Or at least that’s how Tera was born. When the dryad Tera’s friends inform her that the portal on Alcatraz Island is buzzing with an arrival, she thinks her goddess mother has come to visit. When Tera arrives at the portal to welcome her, she doesn’t find her mother, she finds a gigantic otherworldly warrior causing mass destruction among the San Francisco tourists. Being a forest dryad born from the Goddess of the Hunt has its perks, and kicking ass is one of them. Sabin is six-feet-six of hard-bodied soldier, used to subduing demons twice his size. One day after chasing an elusive smoke demon through a portal into the human realm, Sabin is brought to his knees by a beautiful woman, literally. After arriving at a pier full of dead bodies, Tera issues a passionate smack-down before Sabin can explain that he’s the good guy. He’s just in time: an an ancient grudge has come to life. Eris, the Goddess of Chaos, has held a bitter hatred for Tera’s mother, Artemis, for over 400 years – and now she’s ready to destroy all dryads – including Tera

The forecast for Secrets of the Fog is slightly overcast with a chance of rain.

Tera, our dryad abducted from her man-hating nook in one of Artemis’s trees where so many other dryads end their seven hundred plus existences unloved and unregarded by anyone other than the goddess of the hunt, by Sparrow, an almost too aptly (on-the-beak?) named avian shapeshifter, finds she and her abductress have a lot in common, especially as regards their dream of co-owning and operating a coffee-shop.

As the narrative opens, Sparrow and Tera (Agrotera for long) swap energetic small talk, truly heartfelt. Moments like this cannot last; even though, you almost think they should. But alas Tera has a man to catch. Melissandra and Morgana, Sparrow’s magical and magically named aunts, the ones who funded the whole coffeeshop experience, see that someone grand is approaching the portal at Alcatraz. Could it be Tera’s goddess mother? Or is it, dramatic snares, Eris, Tera’s goddess mother’s arch-enemy, goddess of discord who according to this text has done nothing since initiating the Trojan War to get her a new epithet? Sabin, our shining knight from the fog, certainly played by Chris Hemsworth, enters Tera’s realm to chase down a Nunaish, a fog-shifting demon urged by Eris to stir the pot.

The names and plot points, at this point, really sway, surge, and boil with an enthusiasm and a rightness that one rarely sees in paranormal romance. Unfortunately this alignment of the stars and moon only comes together for the first ten pages before descending into a cacophony that however well-meant and occasionally radiant once more is too abruptly choreographed and forthright to let the magic happen.

As I said, sometimes this herky jerky rhythm works perfectly like the sealing of the deal between Tera and Sabin immediately following the slaying of a sex demon. Would Sabin, so unfamiliar with Earth’s custom, not perform just this?

The shortness of the book, for all the sighs of relief it brought me when I opened up the file, is more than likely its undoing. The dialogue and quirkiness of the characters is just where I would want it. I just wish their notes were held a whole lot longer.

Recommendation:	Quick and quirky eread for a jaunt at the park, preferably on a misty day

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