BOOK REVIEW: DOG WITH A BONE by HAILEY EDWARDS - BLACK DOG # 1- URBAN FANTASY

By: Hailey Edwards

Published By: Hailey Edwards

Released: Available Now

Details: Free Kindle Purchase

RATING: 4 STARS

Blurb: Goodreads

Half-bloods with Thierry’s skill set are given two options. They can join the conclave’s marshal program, or they can pack their bags. Turn down the job offer, and you’ve just shredded your residency pass for the mortal realm and booked yourself a one-way ticket to Faerie.

Texas is the only home Thierry has ever known, and she’s not going anywhere. Even if it means following in her notorious father’s footsteps as a peacekeeper. But pinning on the badge opens her eyes to the fact sometimes fae need protection too, and that sometimes humans are the real monsters.

BOOK REVIEW:

I’ve not read any Hailey Edwards before Dog with A Bone. I picked it up because A) It was a freebie and B) It is a short read. I’d just come off reading two books, one after the other, 400+ pages each, and I needed a short read in my system. Hailey’s book caught my eye, while scrolling about Amazon (not that I needed to look for any more books to purchase if you knew how many I have on the cloud).

This story starts off with a brief jaunt in the scrapyard where Thierry passes her cadetship and becomes a marshal. In the scrapyard opening scene, I meet Shaw and Mai and then after a few days off… (no spoilers here)

Bam! Marshal Thackery (Thierry) of the Southwestern Conclave was reporting for duty and receiving OJT (on the job training) with Marshall Shaw on Monday morning. Then we are rushing head first into a case, that wasn’t a whodunit. I was looking forward to having some suspects, throwing about other characters and getting into the thick of it, but it didn't actually go that way.

I did enjoy this introduction to Thierry and Shaw and a rather erm… confusing start to this series. When I say confusing, I am not easily confused, but I kept feeling a bit baffled as to the rushed world-building and the Richardson case. I felt like I was missing some pieces and I was floundering about, but I kept rolling with the story and then my eye was twitching because I felt a bit lost with the speed and lack of solid world-building to put me in that comfy place.

Finishing the ebook, the end book matter actually states: Dog With A Bone is a prequel to the series in the sense that the novella cuts a hole into the ceiling of Thierry’s past and gives us a glimpse of those first steps that set the events of the trilogy into motion one year later.

Cool. I appreciate those words from the author. I think I would have preferred to get to know Cadet Thackery a lot more in this prequel and the hints dropped by the author between Thierry and her instructor having some sort of crush or something that happened during that cadetship.

Thierry is eighteen and Shaw is…I may have missed his age, but he is a lot older or felt that way in this prequel. Not that that matters.

I feel I missed actually getting that introduction into Thierry and her cadetship at the marshal academy. It was totally a glimpse and then we were onto the Richardsons without really learning much about the world the author has created and those hints of something between Thierry and her instructor.

I have purchased several more books by this author from her other series' as well as this series for me to sink my reader teeth into. 

I did like the action and I do like Thierry and Shaw. 

I enjoyed this read and I will be onward bound for more Hailey Edwards’ books in the future.