Spark of Lightning
Storm Warden Chronicles, #1
by Jessica Gunn
SUMMARY:
A vampire, a werewolf, a fae, and me, a human, walk into a casino. Only one comes out winning the prize.
There are very few things I know to be true. I’ve worked hard to stay alive while waitressing at Lunar Royale, a premiere casino in Boston serving explicitly supernatural clientele since a meteor slammed into a ley-line ten years ago. Since the day the weaves collided, I’ve taken these risks because I need money to escape Boston and start over in a new city. That money isn’t coming fast enough and now this job might kill me before I can escape.
Tonight I plan on carefully maneuvering my way into the most important game of poker ever played at Lunar Royale. The stakes are high, and the players are Boston’s supernatural elite: the king of vampires, the matriarch of werewolves, and a bastard fae prince. To top it all off, by the time I realize it’s not money they’re playing for, I’m stuck in the game. The real prize? A dragon’s egg. Dragons were supposed to be hunted to extinction during the Supernatural War, but before that, they were powerful conduits of magic.
This egg, if real, is invaluable.
All I wanted was to escape the city, and winning this dragon’s egg might be my ticket out... if I can survive the game to the end. I just have to ignore the way the dragon’s magic hums, calling to me from across the room.
As if this dragon has belonged to me from the start...
Vera’s journey begins in SPARK OF LIGHTNING, an urban fantasy adventure with faeries, vampires, witches, dragons, magic, journeys to other worlds,
and much more!
Goodreads / Amazon
~ BOOK REVIEW for Spark of Lighning ~
This book starts out as Vera is running late to perpetuate the trick she is hoping to pull off of getting herself invited to join in a very high-stakes poker game. Not a very auspicious beginning. And things don't improve much for her from the get-go. Yet somehow she manages to achieve her objective, even if it doesn't turn out how she anticipated. Then again, anything having to do with supernaturals apparently has quite a lot of room for variation.
Vera had dreamed of winning enough money to get out of Boston and start her life anew. Instead, she ends up the guardian of a very rare and much sought after dragon egg. And egg which proceeds to do what eggs tend to to -- hatch! Both owner and charge become targets for a host of supernaturals, all with their own methods of persuation, and of course their own personal agendas.
Eventually, Vera is rescued by an unexpected source. Although she soon comes to question how much of a rescue it truly was, and if she's actually better off than where she might otherwise have found herself. Things go from bad to even worse fairly quickly, and just pretty much continue to go downhill from there.
There are a handful of characters, in addition to those from the poker game, who appear as though they will be significant to the story. It still remains to see who, if any, are actually on Vera's side.
I was extremely frustrated at the number of things that were alluded to yet never explained, and the general lack of information about the current situation, significant history, and her actual role in what was transpiring. Vera herself is quite irked about how things are going, but she is much more patient and accomodating than I would be in a similar situation.
Suffice it to say that by the end of this book we have many more questions than answers, and I suspect that this state of things will not change any time soon. The current battle and political situation is kind of resolved at the end, but there leaves much to be completed. Things promise to continue apace in the next volume, which I am hoping will provide at least some explanation as to what is going on.
I received a free eBook copy of this title from the author,
and have willingly provided an honest review.
Click here to read my 3-Star REVIEW of the prequel,
"Strike of Magic (Storm Warden Chronicles, #0.5)"!
