by Terrance Mc Arthur

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Winter Halo. We also have a link to order it from Amazon, and from an indie bookstore where a portion goes to help support KRL.

Winter Halo. Remember that title. Look for it.

Keri Arthur started her Outcast series of novels with City of Light, Winter Halo continues the story. Children are missing, female guards are attacked and disappearing at a massive pharma-tech company, and Tiger is on the hunt to solve the mystery.

Tiger has shifter, vampire, and tiger DNA, is immune to all poisons (or close to it), survived the shifter-human war that was a hundred years ago, and can access a partner’s secrets and memories during sex. She was designed as a seductress-spy-assassin.

The other-dimension creatures and vampires unleashed by the last bombs of the war are seeking a way to become invulnerable to sunlight, and the children are part of their quest. Tiger and Jonas, a shifter, rescued some of the youngsters, including Jonas’ niece. Jonas and Tiger fight their mutual attraction; after all, he is sworn to kill the test-tube soldiers, and Tiger is one, so why are they drawn together?

Arthur has left her Melbourne-centric previous books to create a somewhere-else society where constant light has kept the monsters at bay…until now. Halo combines paranormal action with a rescue caper. There’s a goodly amount of carnage—biological and architectural—as Tiger and Jonas go against Dark Ones who are part of the corporate and political infrastructure, while dodging roaming anomalies, rifts that can tear souls to shreds or transport across miles and realities.

I usually say that books are okay to start with at any point in a cycle, but this is a series I would recommend reading from the beginning. Even though this is only the second book, much has already happened, since the backstory stretches more than a century into the past. Some of Tiger’s assumptions are upended, but you need to understand what they were in the first place.

Bear and Cat are still around as Tiger’s friendly ghosts, running errands, acting as lookouts, and occasionally doing battle. They died in her care during the war, along with other child warriors, fueling her desire to protect the abducted children.

Arthur uses sex, violence, romantic tension, and children in peril to drag her readers through portals into worlds that question our ethics and priorities. It’s a paranormal, sci-fi, romantic, fantasy dystopia with a hint of magic.

Winter Halo. Remember that title. Look for it.

To enter to win a copy of Winter Halo, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “halo,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen January 28, 2017. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address, and if via comment please include your email address.

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Click on this link to purchase this book & a portion goes to help support KRL & an indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy:

Winter Halo

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Terrance V. Mc Arthur is a Librarian for the Fresno County Public Library.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.