Friday, October 31, 2014

Immortal Lies (Tybalt Jones Book 1) / S. L. Gray


Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

“S. L. Gray is a fantasy author (urban, epic and otherwise) transplanted from many places to the not-so-wilds of northern California. A storyteller for as long as she can remember, she's tamed her magpie-like attention span, somewhat, and dedicated herself to writing stories other people might enjoy as much as she does.

She is also, as you might have guessed, a huge fan of Shakespeare. She has done theatre on both coasts. She makes beaded boxes and jewelry and is a fiber artist. She loves words in all sorts of languages, knows her way around a computer and was once an EMT.”

For more, visit Ms Gray's website or blog.

Description:

“Tybalt Jones is not your typical creature of the night. He prefers Havana shirts to capes and his ’sidekick’ is a curvy faerie girl. Not a hunchback in sight. He's been out of the vampire ’scene’ for years, and he'd be happy to stay out for the rest of his unlife.

But vampires connected to Tybalt are disappearing from St. Sebastian's streets. To make matters worse, he's on a literal deadline to clean up the city.

With a little gypsy know-how, a dab of faerie luck and a crash course in using his unusual gifts, he might just survive to restore peace.”

Appraisal:

Tybalt Jones is not your typical vampire. His mother “was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed all-American girl.” His father was an ex-steelworker, turned musician, who played at a local blues club. “Somewhere back in his line, red blood mixed with black and the rhythm of two cultures pounded through his veins.” Tybalt has separated himself from other vampires and shifters in his society. He patrols the streets of St. Sebastian to protect the innocent from predators, much to the dismay of his strong-willed faerie girlfriend, Violet.

Somewhere along the line Tybalt incurred the wrath of a man who seeks revenge. He must examine all of his past relationships to discover who this person is. This villain’s method was to attack those connected to Ty bringing about an anger from the whole paranormal community towards him. This foe has learned to use blood magic that seems indefensible. Ty has to seek unconventional means to learn how to defend himself and rescue those trapped from an inescapable prison.

Told through first person perspective, we get to know Ty inside and out. We know what he knows and feel his confusion, regrets, and desires. The narration and banter between the characters was entertaining and added spirit to the story. The characters were diverse and well developed but still have the potential for much more growth as Tybalt’s story progresses. This series has a lot of promise to have some unique storylines. Several possibilities opened up during the course of Immortal Lies and I can’t wait to see where it leads. There is a lot more going on than meets the eye with Mr. Tybalt Jones.

FYI:

Young adult appropriate language and situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

There were a small number of proofing errors in the copy I was given to review and a few incidences of repetition that I would like to see addressed to make this a top-notched urban fantasy.


Rating: **** Four stars

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