Review: To Kill A Warlock (Dulcie O'Neil, #1) ★★★★

The murder of a dark arts warlock. A shape-shifting, ravenous creature on the loose. A devilishly handsome stranger sent to investigate. Sometimes working law enforcement for the Netherworld is a real bitch.

Dulcie O’Neil is a fairy. And not the type to frolic in gardens. She’s a Regulator—a law-enforcement agent who monitors the creatures of the Netherworld to keep them from wreaking havoc in the mortal world. When a warlock is murdered and Dulcie was the last person to see him alive, she must uncover the truth before she’s either deported back to the Netherworld, or she becomes the next victim.

Enter Knight Vander, a sinfully attractive investigator sent from the Netherworld to work the case with Dulcie. Between battling her attraction to her self-appointed partner, keeping a sadomasochistic demon in check, and fending off the advances of a sexy and powerful vampire, Dulcie’s got her hands full. As the body count increases, Dulcie finds herself battling dark magic, reconnoitering in S&M clubs and suffering the greatest of all betrayals.

Review:

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I found myself quite taken with Ms Mallory's writing style right from the offset. It's light, conversational in tone, funny. But please don't be fooled by that nor by the cartoon-like cover. This is not as fluffy, or 'paranormal-lite' as you might be expecting once you get into the meat of the story. It was actually surprisingly dark and sexy in places and had violent scenes, but those scenes were usually described off-page rather than experienced first-hand. Mallory herself describes her writing as "a blend of suspense, humour, light horror, and romance with a sprinkle of fantasy to tie everything together" and that's pretty accurate. And I loved it!

It's written first-person through Dulcie who is a faerie. She's a pretty fabulous character; intelligent, good at her job, witty and attractive (although she has a tendency to fixate on the bits she doesn't find attractive and ignore the rest). There are plenty of other people that have no issues seeing her full level of attractiveness, however, and there are some very interesting possibilities set up in the romance department. But that will be for future books. Dulcie isn't running into anything after being put through the wringer by her last boyfriend. No matter how persistent her potential suitors get!

One thing I really enjoyed was the variety of supernatural species. You've got Faries, Werewolves, Vampires, Trolls, Elves and Goblins to name only a few, as well as some more that I'd not heard of before. I like Urban Fantasies with a nice diversity like that. And this time, refreshingly, they all seem to get along pretty well. There's no inbred animosity between any two species. Nope, any animosity found between characters is earned all on its own. Such as between rival potential love interests for example...

The mystery plot was well-executed, with some big twists and turns. The pacing was excellent and moved at a good clip throughout. The sexual tension was almost off the charts, and overall I'm just very excited for this series.

My only complaint would be that the best friend character, Sam, was slightly underwritten. She could have been put to better use and maybe displayed the level of closeness between her and Dulcie more. Especially if she's going to be an important character in future books.

Altogether, a very impressive 4 Stars! ★★★★

(At the time of writing this, the first book is free on Amazon. You would be totally cray cray not to snap it up!