Book Review: Night Owls

Author: Lauren M. Roy

Publication Date: February 25, 2014

Publisher: Ace

Series: Night Owls # 1

Night Owls book store is the one spot on campus open late enough to help out even the most practiced slacker. The employees’ penchant for fighting the evil creatures of the night is just a perk.

Valerie McTeague’s business model is simple: provide the students of Edgewood College with a late-night study haven and stay as far away from the underworld conflicts of her vampire brethren as possible. She’s lived that life, and the price she paid was far too high to ever want to return.

Elly Garrett hasn’t known any life except that of fighting the supernatural werewolf-like beings known as Creeps or Jackals. But she always had her mentor and foster father by her side—until he gave his life protecting a book that the Creeps desperately want to get their hands on.

When the book gets stashed at Night Owls for safe keeping, those Val holds nearest and dearest are put in mortal peril. Now Val and Elly will have to team up, along with a mismatched crew of humans, vampires, and lesbian succubi, to stop the Jackals from getting their claws on the book and unleashing unnamed horrors.

Now it seemed something new had rolled into town. She hoped it hadn’t come looking for her.

His number one lesson, drilled into her over and over since childhood, was: Never get cornered by a Creep.

But being dead seemed to have closed up her tear ducts, and while maybe others could weep near her, no one could weep for her.

This is the start to what promises to be a highly exciting new Urban Fantasy series! I do not read much from this genre at all, but after reading this gem I am starting to reconsider my hesitation for the genre in its entirety. In the start to the Night Owls series, we meet Val and Elly who team up along with some other really awesome characters to fight the Creeps or Jackals, whichever term you prefer to call them, in order to keep them from reproducing and in order to avenge Elly’s mentor and estranged brother. This book is full of supernatural creatures, including the vampire that is our very own heroine and bookstore owner named Val. These girls are the complete and total definition of top notch feminist heroines!

The book focuses around more than just Elly and Val, and please don’t ask me which of these women I liked best because they both had so many amazing characteristics. The rest of their team, including Val’s Reinfield, Chaz, were are likeable and easy to follow. They all unit with one goal in mind: stop the Creeps and whatever it is that is allowing them to reproduce. Some bloggers felt like there were too many characters to keep up with, but I enjoyed them all and did not find it confusing in the least. I think it takes an action-packed team like the one we have here in order to fight this particular evil. The Creeps are written to be just what their name implies: creepy! They are just grotesque and disgusting.

I am anxious to see where this series goes next. I haven’t heard anything about the next book, but I am excitedly monitoring Goodreads for any new information weekly. I like the world that this story introduced and I definitely feel like it will be perfect for world building. I also hope we meet more awesome characters, and maybe even a few others like Val and Elly. This book had a little bit of everything, but maybe could have used a little extra spice when it came to the romance department. Either way, I was impressed with this author and cannot wait to see what else she has in store for us!

***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Ace in exchange for my honest review***