Dead in the Water by Hailey Edwards

Dead in the Water
by Hailey Edwards
Pages: 186
Date: January 30 2016
Publisher: Self
Series: Gemini (1st in series; 6th in shared universe)

Review
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0
Read: February 14 to 15 2016

My sixth book by this author. Before this book, my average rating for this author was 3.90. After this book, my average rating for this author is 3.67.

This is both the sixth book I've read by this author and the sixth book set in the same universe. Only four of those, though, had the same main character - that being those books in the Black Dog series (and involving Thierry). Well, Thierry was in this book as well, and . . . I don't recall if she has a cameo in Mai's book. She only has a cameo in this book though.

No, this time the main character is Camille Ellis. A Gemini. Other than something about twins, and something about being able to detect what other people are, and a limited time ability to shift into other things, I've no real idea what a Gemini is supposed to be.

The story here isn't really super bad or anything. No, I rated it the way I rated it for the same reason I rated the first book in the Black Dog series 3 stars. The main male was super creepy, and the male-female dynamic in that book was very off putting on so many levels. This is the same in this one. I kind of liked Thierry in that book, though, while I don't really like Camille Ellis. Then the later books in the Black Dog series pushed Shaw, the creepy guy in that Thierry series, into something of a larger than a cameo role but barely role, and I was able to push down the nausea he generated in me. Unfortunately, I don't think this series here will follow the same path.

So - at some point, I believe maybe when she was about 7 or 8, Cam watched her twin sister Lori drown. She's felt incredibly guilty ever since then and is super down on herself. And to increase the level of pain and guilt, she spends her time investigating drowning victims. This brings us to this book here. Apparently there's this person going around killing fae and or magical people. There's a good chance this person doing the kill is also fae.

The first body Cam visits in this book, though not the first death, Cam runs across a guy named Cord Graeson - who is the beta in the Warg clan in the region the dead body was found. Oh, and Cord is also the brother of the dead person and desires to find the murderer. Because of politics, Cam is forced to allow Cord to be involved in the investigation.

One - Warg is what any other fantasy series would call a werewolf. Two - aren't warg's the name of pets Klingon's have? Wait, no, they have Targs, not wargs. Though the targ in Star Trek III was named Warrigul. Which is not a warg but . . . um. Right.

I was having a certain amount of trouble with this book before Cord Graeson kidnapped Cam so once that happened; I just wanted the book to be over. Following Cam around? While she constantly belittled herself? And was involved with the weirdly evil Marshalls (a fellow agent gets into trouble, it takes them a good long while to get off their asses to actually help this fellow agent, okay, so she was a contractor not a fellow agent, so?)? Yeah, that was kind of annoying. Then the kidnapping occurred.

Books like this one here remind me of why I don't like reading MF romance books. Inevitably we end up with a brooding man-child who dominates women and screams things like a two year old ‘mine mine mine’. Happened in the first book in the Dog series I read. Happened here. Happens in way too many other MF romance books I read. Seriously, is that the only thing men can be described as? Man-childs? And I’m supposed to go weak in the knees over it? Well, Cam seemed weak in the knees at times, while bitching about being kidnapped. So . . . supposedly I am supposed to be drooling over the man-child Cord. Oh, and that ‘but he was in grief’? He wasn’t himself? He spread his grief around his werewolf clan so he could operate on finding the killer.

That whole warg thing pissed me off. There’s a female warg Cam meets. She’s kind of bubbly. And kind of cowers around male wargs. And smiles when one calls her over. Though the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. No, her eyes tell a different story. As she is forced, because of pack dynamics, to fuck that male warg. Right there in the open.

One of the reasons I was able to get over a vaguely similar nausea inducing man in Black Dog was because 1) the man didn’t really matter in the series (I’m overplaying his lack of importance, but whatever); 2) the woman was super powerful. Well, this time the man seems to matter, and this time the woman is a super weak ass liability.

This book ends in a cliff-hanger. And you know what? I did not in the least care. I was ready for the book to end 30 pages before it ended in the way it did. Still, there’s a reasonably good chance I’ll try the second book in this specific series here. Mostly on the off chance the author follows the patterns she set down in her other series in this universe. As in, super nausea inducing man introduced, turns out to be less important than expected, woman stronger than expected, etc.

Too bad the Mai series didn’t continue, though. Unlike Thierry and Cam, I always liked Mai. Even if she spends all of her time man-hunting, I still always liked her. And following her story.

Well, it’s probably time to stop babbling now. I’ll just leave with this thought here – I fucking hate Cord Graeson.

February 16 2016