TEMPEST RISING: Jane True #1 - Nicole Peeler

From the back of the book: Living in a small town Rockabill, Maine, Jane True always knew she didn't quite fit in with so-called normal society.

During her nightly clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean, a grisly find leads Jan to startling revelations about her heritage: she is only half-human.

Now, Jane must enter a world filled with supernatural creatures that are terrifying, beautiful, and deadly--all of which perfectly describe her few 'friend,' Ryu, a gorgeous and powerful vampire.

It is a world where nothing can be taken for granted: a dog can heal with a lick; spirits bag your groceries; and whatever you do, never--ever--rub the genie's lamp.

If you love Sookie Stackhouse, then you'll want to dive into Nicole Peeler's enchanting debut novel.

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O..M..G!!! I have absolutely no idea what took me so long to buy this incredibly hellah fun book. It's been on the WWBL ever since I started reading Nicole's bloggage on League of Reluctant Adults and interviews here there and yon in anticipation of the release of TEMPEST RISING last November.

I bought it when I joined up Literary Escapism's mini challenge to read as many League books as possible in February, preferably the League authors we hadn't read yet. Good enough to go book shopping and put this one in the cart. Then it became the next book after Jackie Kessler's HELL'S BELLES. I was two for two in new author 'YAY, I'm so glad I found this author' pool.

I could empathize with Jane's outsider-ness and the small cache of friends she loved and who loved her. I'm glad Nicole didn't dwell on the sheer town bastards who treated Jane like shite at every opportunity. Rather, Jane glowed when she showed her strength of character, her love for her father and fab friends, especially the owners of the bookshop where she worked. And her love of the ocean without understanding why she felt so at home and at peace when in the water.

Then she found the body on the beach and her world started to change. Anyan, the talking dog arrived as did Ryu, the uber hot vampire and investigator for the fae world. The body on the beach wasn't just any body, he was a halfling, half human and half...well, not human. As was Jane.

I liked how Nicole gave Jane just enough 'Wuh-haaat?' incredulity and the right amount of common sense to go along with the flow of events as they occurred.

And, oh the fab 'dirty drawer'....snort laugh funny throughout, excellent fight scenes, well written other world characters, both full and halfling varietal. The humans are pretty much secondary in the whole book and that's just fine with me. Especially since the majority of the humans in the book are aith-holes and life is too short to read about them...movin' on....not to say that the fae world is all la-la-la airy fairy nice. Nope, there's some eeeevil ones on that side of the bed, too. The good ones are good and ornery and funny and the bad ones are eeeevil. Fab mix.

So...I changed up the rating..TEMPEST RISING gets to be the first five sparkly diamond rating....I'll still do coffee beans, but the really special ones from now on will get the diamonds....

Here's five sparkly diamonds for Jane and the gang....