ARC review: Nightshades

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28765742Title: Nightshades
Author: Melissa F. Olson
Genre: Urban fantasy, mystery

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:
Alex McKenna is the new Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations—the division tasked with investigating crimes involving shades.
Or vampires, as they’re more widely known.
Children have been going missing, and agents are routinely being slaughtered. It’s up to McKenna, and some unlikely allies, to get to the bottom of the problem, and find the kids before it’s too late.
Nightshades is a new gritty urban fantasy from Melissa F. Olson.



I'm not gonna lie, I requested this book on netgalley because of how cool the cover looked! Of course the synopsis sounded interesting as well, and at the time I was looking for a mystery/UF book and since this was a mix of both I decided to give it a shot.

I thought the premise was interesting: vampires living among humans and kidnapping them a few at a time for unknown reasons, and a paranormal task force attempting to find out what the vampires are up to. I enjoy cat-and-mouse stories, especially when the villains are clever and often manage to outfox the law enforcement. It's always interesting to see how the police or law enforcement manages to outsmart and outmaneuvers criminals without resorting to the same extreme measures that a villain might.

The book started off well, and I warmed to the characters quickly. However, I felt like the story was too short to be complex or interesting enough for me. I was expecting a little more cat-and-mouse or a few more challenges with identifying and capturing the culprit(s), but everything fell into place quite neatly. There was also a sudden and unnecessary romantic subplot that came out of nowhere in the last 20 pages or so, and I would have liked more in terms of leading up to it and the consequences for the future. A longer book would also have helped with the pacing; at some times the plot dragged and at others it moved insanely fast.

I thought this was an okay urban fantasy mystery. It wasn't one of my favorites but it was a nice and quick read.

A free e-copy was provided by Tor Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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