The Wicked by Thea HarrisonThe Wicked by Thea Harrison
Series: Elder Races #5.5
Published by Samhain Publishing on July 2, 2013
Genres: PNR
Pages: 105
Format: eBook
Goodreads
four-stars

The adventure of a lifetime might just end in turmoil, but when it includes meeting your future mate, who gives a hoot?

A Novella of the Elder Races

For a librarian with a focus on rare magic books, Olivia’s new job is a dream come true. She has been hired as part of a team to help manage the safe transportation of the collection of books owned by the Vampyre sorceress Carling Severan. The fact that the library is located on a mysterious island in an Other land only heightens the adventure.

Head of security for the expedition, Sebastian Hale is tired of his rootless life of adventure and finds himself attracted to the calm, beautiful librarian. But he is living a personal nightmare. He has been hit with a curse that is slowly taking away his sight, and he doesn’t know if he will survive the results.

But the powerful feelings growing between them, along with Sebastian’s inner turmoil, take a backseat when they learn there is a traitor lurking among their expedition team. With Elder Races politics and a priceless library on the line, they’ll have to rely on each other to survive the experience.

Warning: When a librarian who likes to nest meets an owl Wyr who has always lived for adventure, their romance won’t just be fly-by-night…

Thea Harrison has a way of writing heroes that are vastly different from each other. We don’t have each hero just a slightly different version of Dragos. Each hero is his own person. It’s amazing that she doesn’t use the same typical PNR hero (you know, 6’8” or so, alpha as can be, and super rich, handsome, and perfect in every way), and that it works so well.

Sebastian is about 5’7″ going blind, about 200 years old, but has a 250 year lifespan, oh and he’s an owl shifter. I can honestly say I’ve never read that before. It was fantastic. He is heading up security for a mission that Carling has initiated. She has a vast library of invaluable texts and she has only 3 days to retrieve it.

Olivia is a librarian. And she’s human.  Her job is to help safely transport Carling’s library. She and Sebastian hit it off immediately, and in fact the steam factor in this novella is upped a notch from the previous books, but that’s A-OK with me.

But this story has more than just romance. They are running against a clock and there is more going on than a simple removal of books.

This novella has a lot for everyone—romance, steam, original characters, and a really intriguing plot where nothing is as simple as it seems. I think any Elder Races fan will enjoy this story.

four-stars