I’m so pleased to be part of the BBBNYA 2021 blogtour for Judgement Day by Josie Jaffrey- an urban fantasy set in Oxford.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Book 2 The Seekers,
Book 1 May Day ( review here)
Source: I received this book to read and review as part of the BBNYA 2021 tours ( see below for more details ) organised by the TWR Tour team. All opinions are my own, unbiased and honest.
Jack Valentine finally has her shit together. She has a great job, great friends (well, one at least) and a girlfriend whom she loves, even if she can’t work up the courage to tell her that yet. Unfortunately, she also has an archnemesis who’s about to punish her crimes in the worst possible way: by making her spend time with him.
Which she could cope with, maybe, if she didn’t have problems at work as well. When the body of a human judge is found in a locked library, there’s no denying that she was murdered by one of the Silver – by a vampire – and the evidence points worryingly close to home. If that wasn’t bad enough, some of Jack’s least favourite people are opening a new blood bar in Oxford with questionable motives. For Jack and her team, it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate allies from enemies.
With conspiracies on every side, the simmering tensions in Silver society are about to come to a head. As usual, Jack intends to be right in the middle of it. She does like it when things get messy.
Review
May Day (review here), the first book in this series helped me rediscover my love of vampires, so I was so excited to be part of the tour for Judgement Day, the second book in Josie Jaffrey’s The Seekers series.
The book is in the first person from Jack Valentine’s point of view. Jack is a relatively new, accidental vampire who works for The Seekers, a group of vampires tasked with finding vampires who risk their discovery by humans. Jack continues to be funny, clever, sarcastic, realistic and without any angst. Yes, she doesn’t trust her boss, her colleagues, her girlfriend, the Baron but this doesn’t stop her from doing her job.
Judgement day is the perfect blend of police procedural and vampire fantasy. I loved how the nitty gritty of the Jack’s investigation into a locked room murder slowly unravelled the layers of the underlying vampire conspiracy ( I’ have to admit to being shocked by what those vampires have planned!). The vampires in Judgement Day can walk around normally, get drunk and have to work for a living just like the rest of us normal humans.
While I’m not a massive fan of romance in books, Jack’s complicated romantic entanglements with not just one but two complicated vampire do form an enjoyable but vital part of the story and thankfully there isn’t much angst ( compared to some other vampire fantasies).
There are several mysteries and subplots in this book but they do dovetail neatly at the end. The premise for the next book is also set up by the end and I did like the mini-cliffhanger at the end.
Judgement day can be read as a standalone but I would recommend reading May Day first ( because it really is a great read!)
Content Warning
The author provides a list of content warnings in the book but there are references to drugs, spiking of drinks.
Perfect for Fans of
Vampire Urban Fantasy. The early Anita Blake books ( review here).
BBNYA is a yearly competition where Book Bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors. If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website http://www.bbnya.com or twitter @bbnya_official.
The sign-ups are now open for BBNYA 2022 for authors and panelists. Click here to enter:
About the author
Josie is the author of multiple novels and short stories. Most of those are set in the Silverse, a pre- and post-apocalyptic world filled with vampires and zombies.
She is currently working on a range of fantasy and historical fiction projects (both adult and YA). Ultimately, she hopes to be a hybrid author, both traditionally- and self-published. After finishing her degree in Literae Humaniores (Classics) at the University of Oxford, Josie wasn’t sure what to do with her life. She slogged through a brief stint working for an investment bank in London during the 2008 credit crunch, then converted to law and qualified as a solicitor specialising in intellectual property. She worked at a law firm for five years before moving to a UK-based international publisher in 2016. Whilst she loved law, in the end she didn’t love it quite as much as writing, which she now does almost full time.Josie lives in Oxford with her husband and two cats (Sparky and Gussie), who graciously permit human cohabitation in return for regular feeding and cuddles. The resulting cat fluff makes it difficult for Josie to wear black, which is largely why she gave up being a goth. Although the cats are definitely worth it, she still misses her old wardrobe.
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