Review: Brimstone Bound

Brimstone Bound by Helen Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Emma Bailey is living a great life, up for her final rotation in the London Police force detective training programme she gets assigned to the Supernatural Squad (usually given as a punishment for the truly useless) rather than the Cyber Crime assignment she (and her accountant boyfriend Jeremy) was expecting.

At first Emma is mortified at being given the dunce assignment, then excited at the idea of being a liaison between the humans, vampires and werewolves, complete with special cool weapons. But then Emma finds the Supe Squad consists of three underwhelming individuals whose only role appears to be appeasement of the Supes, they don't even get to investigate crimes involving supernaturals - they do that themselves.

Then Emma gets brutally attacked while supposedly awaiting her boss in a London churchyard and wakes up lying on a mortuary slab accompanied by flames and a smell of sulphur! At first Emma blames her boss for her 'murder' or at least for setting her up, but when he goes missing too she realises there is something more sinister afoot. Werewolves are disappearing and Emma needs to find out who is responsible, and she'd kind of like to understand who wants her dead.

Although there are a lot of very familiar characters and tropes in this book (enigmatic and charming vampire lord, aggressive werewolf clans, etc) I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fast-paced, funny, intriguing and twisty I didn't spot the individual behind the werewolf disappearances until it was spelt out for me.

First in a new series which looks like being fun and doesn't take itself too seriously, I can't wait to read the next one.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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