Ladymol's Review

I was entranced by the first of these novels in the Bay City Paranormal Investigation, but the second one was a struggle to get through. Which is a shame as the premise set up in the first - straight guy struggling to overcome his homosexual attraction for one of his new employees - was carried enticingly over into the second to be resolved. I guess I enjoyed the struggle more than the resolution. The novels are set in a paranormal investigation agency, which doesn't seem to far removed from Angel Investigations. I was not too surprised, therefore, to discover that Ally Blue began as a fan fiction reader/author and branched out into original fiction with these novels. The first story is genuinely scary (or that may just be me) but the second hardly raised a hair. Sam is the new employee at Bay City, gay, out and proud. Bo is the tall, dark handsome owner of the agency, in a rocky marriage and oddly restrained and abrupt around Sam. Over the investigation of disappearances and horrible murders in Oleander House, the sparks fly between them. The premise and plot were better than the writing. It was pedestrian at best. The dialogue seemed particularly flat. I really couldn't hear anyone saying it. However, the plot was intriguing in the first novel: inter-dimensional rifts, creatures that can take over dreams and enter minds. It was especially unnerving to think of the survivors of the massacres turned insane and committed to institutions for life, families or partners disappeared or hideously murdered. None of this was in the second book, even though they were still dealing with the creatures and the rifts. It was as if the author had enough material for one book, was nagged into a sequel and pushed out the second, very inferior product. If you are a fan of Angel slash then this will probably do it for you. They're expensive though and to be honest with so much great FREE fan fiction out there, I wonder whether the expense is justified.