Keeper of the Shadows by
Alexandra Sokoloff is the third book in the Keepers LA series featuring cousins Rhiannon, Sailor, and Barrie - this one focuses on Barrie, the shifter Keeper.
As a Keeper, Barrie must keep the secret of the Other world while enforcing the rules and seeking justice for shifters. Her day job as a crime beat reporter for the newspaper is an asset in this - but her coworker Mick is not. So when a young shifter turns up dead and Barrie sees a connection with the overdoes of a major Hollywood honcho - a human honcho - and Mick keeps showing up in front of her as she investigates, things are bound to get sticky.
Barrie may have been my favorite of this Keeper trio - perhaps because about a million years ago I thought I was going to be a journalist - and I really enjoyed Mick as well. Barrie was smart, sassy, brave, and beautiful. She listens to her intuition and respects her position as Keeper. She also loves her family and isn't afraid to lean on them when she needs to. Mick is very mysterious - a little shady but also seemingly with a heart of gold. I suspected the truth about Mick from very early on in the book and I think most readers will have their suspicions about him as well.
It was nice to see characters I enjoyed in the previous books again - not just the other two Keeper cousins but also Alessandre, Brodie, Declan, and others. Los Angeles is always an interesting setting and
Sokoloff does a fantastic job of showcasing the juxtaposition of "Hollywood" and what we see on tv and in movies and the truth of any urban area with its crime, drugs, and other unsavory elements. The setting really manages to elevate the novel in a subtle but necessary way.
I would highly recommend the entire series to any fan of the paranormal.
Keeper of the Shadows will be published by
Harlequin on May 7, 2013.
Synopsis
Ancestral Keepers
Rhiannon, Sailor Ann, and Barrymore Gryffald keep the peace between the
supernatural communities in the shadowy Otherworld of Hollywood, where
the mortals can be as strange—and dangerous—as the paranormals.
When
a teenage shifter is found dead on Hollywood Boulevard on the same
night as a studio head dies in suspicious circumstances, Shapeshifter
Keeper Barrymore Gryffald is sure the deaths are connected. She
discovers an eerie parallel to a fifteen-year old tragedy: the
mysterious death of an iconic teenage movie star on the set of a cult
movie about the Otherworld. Barrie reluctantly teams with the gorgeous
and enigmatic Mick Townsend, a rival journalist on her paper, to dig
into the movie's history and a cast of suspects that range from teenage
runaways to international movie stars. As more victims surface, Barrie
can trust no one, least of all Mick, who may well prove to be as
inconstant as the shifters Barrie is sworn to protect.