Title: A Bad Breed
Author: Kat Ross
Genre: Urban fantasy/historical fantasy
Rating: Five stars
“Pricolici.
A creature out of folklore. And nightmare.
January 1889. When a Romanian village suffers a series of brutal attacks, occult investigator Anne Lawrence is dispatched to the forests of the Old Country to hunt the killer – only to vanish without a trace.
The trail leads her mentor Vivienne Cumberland deep into the Carpathians to a remote monastery. As a blizzard rages outside, trapping them all with the pricolici, Vivienne risks sharing the fate of the woman she came to find. But is the culprit truly a werewolf … or something even more dangerous?
A man bent on revenge. And a love that was never meant to be.
Imprisoned in a decaying castle, Anne finds herself ensnared in a web of dark enchantment, at the mercy of a mysterious captor with a beast inside – and a memory as old as the ancient legends.
As the weeks pass, Anne learns his real identity, and slowly uncovers a complex and deeply passionate man. But is she willing to pay the price for falling under his spell?”
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My Review
I can’t get enough of this series. This is book 3 in the Gaslamp Gothic series and while I’m a hardcore Kat Ross fan, she has completely outdone herself this time.
What I didn’t expect was that this is actually a Beauty and the Beast retelling. A Bad Breed follows several characters: Anne, who has been taken hostage on a supernatural investigation in eastern Europe, Vivienne and Nathanial, who are determined to find out what happened to Anne, and Alec, who is recovering in Gran Canaria after the excitement of book 2: The Thirteenth Gate (check out the review here).
I devoured this book. If it wasn’t in my Kindle I might have eaten it afterwards.
The settings were vivid, the tension was all-consuming and there were amazing, unpredictable surprises Every character has incredible depth, as per usual, and the story was unwaveringly addictive.
It was interesting to see Vivienne and Nathanial’s relationship, which is what Vivienne calls a “sham marriage” on account of her needing some status and him needing everyone to think he’s straight. They get on quite well considering and they care for each other on a platonic level.
Anne is the only character we haven’t yet met properly and I love her. She is resourceful, energetic and just a really interesting character all round. Plus, she plays the violin and as a hardcore fan of Lindsey Stirling also, it makes me that much fonder of her.
You don’t actually need to have read books one and two (The Daemoniac – read the review here and The Thirteenth Gate) to enjoy this book so I recommend it whether you’ve read the previous books or not.
You can check out the buy link for A Bad Breed here.
Naturally, it’s a The Secret Library recommended read!
Thanks for reading!
