cover image The Trouble with Fate

The Trouble with Fate

Leigh Evans. St. Martin’s Paperbacks, $7.99 mass market (368p) ISBN 978-1-250-00640-0

Hedi Peacock is half-Fae and half-werewolf and has spent her life on the run from the Fae who abducted her brother and murdered her parents. As an adult, she works at Starbucks and lives with her mentally unstable Aunt Lou and a living magical amulet called Merry. Hedi’s love interest is a werewolf named Robson Trowbridge, whom she has been obsessed with since childhood, and whom—to his real horror—she literally molests in his sleep. The moment Robson walks into the room, Hedi becomes a catty stereotype, snarling “skank” and “ho” at every other woman in sight and even at her own lusty “inner were.” As a fantasy novel, the book is frustrating; the description of Hedi’s past and her magical Mystwalking abilities is hugely rushed in favor of romance. As a romance, it’s a dismal failure; Hedi and Robson don’t act like they like each other. The result is uneven and unsatisfying. Agent: Deidre Knight, the Knight Agency. (Jan.)