Can a werewolf who makes people disappear save his world -- and get the boy of his dreams?
HIDDEN POWERS
(Superordinary Society Series, Bk 1)
By Tara Lain
Blurb
Jazz Vanessen is weird—and not just because he’s a werewolf. For most of his life, he’s felt different from his alpha male brothers and friends. Since he’s adopted, he can’t even blame it on family.
Now eighteen, Jazz meets his idol, the social activist Lysandra Mason, and her breathtaking nephew, Dash Mercury. When Dash is around, even stranger things start to happen, including Jazz falling hopelessly in lust. Not only is Jazz having visions, making people disappear, and somehow turning invisible, but somebody’s following him and threatening to reveal his pack’s secrets to the world.
Together with Dash and Jazz’s equally amazing friends—Carla, BeBop, Khadija, and Fatima—they discover the danger is even more lethal than they thought, and Jazz’s weirdness may save all their lives.
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Excerpt
The movie started, and as he’d guessed, it was crappy. But Carla was into it. She bounced in her seat and munched handfuls of popcorn. Neither Jazz nor Dash had gotten any, although Jazz had opted for the vanilla cola he and Carla both loved. Jazz kind of wished he’d gotten popcorn, since maybe it would have helped distract him from the warmth of Dash’s long, firm thigh just inches from Jazz’s leg. The heat kept spreading like a lava flow up to parts that didn’t need any more warming, and Jazz kept shifting from buttcheek to buttcheek.
Carla leaned over. “I got way too much popcorn. You guys want some?”
Dash stared skeptically at the huge bag Carla passed, but Jazz reached over, grabbed it, and clasped it like a life preserver, then held it out to Dash.
As two werewolves roared and attacked each other on the screen, Dash glanced at the offer, then slid a hand into the half-empty bag, dug around, and guided a handful of white kernels toward his mouth. Jazz dragged his eyes away from those lips that he could easily imagine devouring something other than popcorn. He dug his own hand into the bag, grabbed a handful, and shoved it into his mouth, spilling several puffs down his front.
Dash murmured, “Um, good.”
Jazz agreed. He dove for more as Dash did the same, and their hands met somewhere in the middle of the bag, bumping. They both froze.
Jazz held his breath. What to do? Just as he almost made a decision to pull his hand out, he—did he?—felt Dash’s finger move. The soft, warm digit might have caressed the palm of Jazz’s hand. Maybe. Now he really didn’t know what to do.
Two of Dash’s fingers dragged over Jazz’s palm, an area of his body that must have nerves stretching directly to his penis because the pressure produced an equal and opposite reaction. For a second, they sat there, frozen, Jazz’s whole brain dwelling somewhere between his thighs. Then Dash intertwined their fingers and Jazz thought he’d have an orgasm right there, every nerve-ending throbbing.
“Hey you guys, don’t bogart the popcorn.” Carla reached across Dash’s body toward the bag. Fortunately, her eyes remained fixed on the screen where two werewolves were stalking each other through the forest.
Dash managed to let go of Jazz’s fingers, and Jazz pulled his hand out in time to allow Carla to drag the bag away from his erection, which was so huge it could probably shove ten people out of the theater.
5 Stars!
Take a deep breath, hold your Kindle tight and dive into this brilliant adventure. The best Tara Lain book I've read!
By the time I got the ARC of this book to review, I'd forgotten the blurb that made me request it. Which was absolutely THE. BEST. WAY. TO. READ. THIS. BOOK. Seriously, had I re-read the blurb I wouldn't have enjoyed the discoveries that I made in this book.
It's one of the hardest books I've had to review, and I won't be able to do it justice, so I won't bother reviewing in the normal sense. I'll just try to clue you in without Spoilers. Here goes.
The characters in this book, well the main ones who become the SuperOrdinary Society, range from 15 to just under 18, and the youngest is a super-brain who wears nifty suits and is about to start a summer teaching job at Harvard; I kid you not. The others are unknown to each other for the most, other than werewolf, Jazz, and human, Carla, who've known each other for about 5 years, and who're besties. They all come together as interns at Jazz's grandfather's company. And then the tale takes off and if you're anything like me, you'll be holding on to your seat, your Kindle and hanging in there for the ride.
The ride has magick and danger, werewolves and werewolf politics and allegiances and yet also fun and games. It has humans who're part of a Pack, when normally the penalty for a human to know about the existence of weres is death. It has mages and machinations and learnt-magic and born-with magic. It has secrets and guys with agendas, and it has the interns... working (the closest word I can use, as I can't think of the exact one, sorry) together to protect... something, and it has what I think are friendships that'll withstand the test of anything and everything that might be thrown at them, literally and figuratively.
This is and yet isn't a YA tale. It does and yet doesn't have a light romance at its heart; by that, I mean that there are feelings between a couple of the leads, but that is not at the heart of the tale, and isn't the focus of the tale. It could have skipped the romance entirely, and yet this reader of primarily romance would have still been this into the story. I couldn't recount this tale to save my life, as there was too much happening in it and it was all pretty damned brilliant. I only hope we'll see more in this series, as there are endless possibilities with the way things have been left. And, I sooo want to know more about the characters. I can't tell you whose history/past I want to know more about first, because I want to know about them all. Soon.
The tale does feature some guys from the author's were/supernatural tales as side characters; I've not read any of those, but it's not necessary to in order to enjoy this tale. Sometimes, a tale with so much going on, like this one, if not done as skillfully as TL has, could be a case of too much happening and too many cooks spoiling the broth, but this totally worked for me.
ARC courtesy of Dreamspinner Press and Bayou Book Junkie, for my reading pleasure.
3.25 Stars!
I've read several of Tara Lain's books, but this one was very different than her usual stuff, and hard to get into at the beginning. While it's a new series, it relies on some events that occurred in the Tales of the Harker Pack series. Unfortunately, it's been 4 years since I read those books and recalling the characters and plots that were relevant to this one was difficult. I felt like I was dropped into the middle of a series, and while the relevant background could have been added to make things easier, what was added was done in a way that really didn't work for me. That being said, once I made it further into the story and the plot began to move, things got easier and I began to like the characters and story. I still feel like I need to go back and reread the Harker Pack books simply because I can't remember the story of how Jazz ended up with his family, which is referenced a number of times here.
Jazz is a werewolf who was adopted by the Vanessens. He has always felt like he's different from everyone, but doesn't feel comfortable telling even his beloved adopted family about the weird things that keep happening to him. When Jazz meets his idol, Lysandra, and her nephew Dash, at a social event with his best friend Carla, he starts speeding towards finding out more about himself, as well as towards lots of danger.
Jazz is a sweetheart. He's very loyal to his friends and tries his best at everything he does. It was easy to like Jazz's character. Dash has his own agenda as he befriends Jazz and Carla, but as he gets to know them, he finds his loyalty and intentions divided. I liked Dash and was happy to see him making his own decisions that he felt were right even if they could cost him everything. He and Jazz clearly develop strong feelings for each other, but never really get a chance to begin a relationship with all the intrigue and mystery to solve.
The cast of characters in this book was really different and cool. I hope that we will learn more about everyone and their powers as the series continues. I would say that this is more like a YA novel; Jazz and his friends are all in their late teens or early twenties. It's not a HEA ending - I would say that Jazz and Dash's relationship is at its start, no matter how strong their feelings are at this point. It will be interesting to see how and when they manage to make their currently divergent lives come together in future stories.
While I found the beginning really difficult, I was happy I made it through the book. I am looking forward to more of this series just to see how the characters mature, come into their powers, and most importantly how Dash and Jazz finally get their HEA.
*** Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie by Dreamspinner Press for my reading pleasure, a review wasn't a requirement. ***
About the Author
You can find Tara at Lain
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Rita and Jen! Thank you so much for reading Hidden Powers! I'm so glad you liked it and loved reading your reviews. Hugs! : )
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the new book release! It looks fantastic and sounds so interesting!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Himi!! Hugs.
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