cover image Blood of Dawn

Blood of Dawn

Tami Dane. Kensington, $7.99 mass market (352p) ISBN 978-0-7582-6711-5

A sympathetic lead and a handful of spirited supporting characters help overcome implausibility, a hodge-podge of unrelated elements, and a sluggish pace in Dane’s moderately entertaining third Sloan Skye supernatural mystery (after Blood of Innocence). Sloan, a summer intern at the FBI’s Paranormal Behavioral Analysis Unit, goes undercover as a high school student to learn who or what has been electrocuting teenage girls. In an almost entirely separate narrative, Sloan improbably takes the lead as a crime scene investigator and profiler on another case. Her partner, JT, is attracted to her, but distracted when a lesbian friend miscarries his child. A spell has rendered Sloan incapable of remembering her tryst with fellow intern Gabe. Sloan’s arranged engagement to an elf prince actually does relate to the plot, but is so bland it hardly matters. Fortunately, her unfailingly engaging roommate Katie and the cheerily morbid Sluagh prince Elmer appear to lighten up the story when it begins to drag. Agent: Natasha Kern, Natasha Kern Literary Agency. (Dec.)