Forsaken Fae

When I started reading, I didn't realise this was part of an already-established series. The reader is thrown into the middle of a conversation and it was a little confusing. A lot of the previous action and character building was done in the previous books and, while you do end up getting some background information, it's not enough to really get to know these characters if you're starting here. I guess I wished that had been more clear by the title or cover of the book.

This is another urban fantasy that combines a lot of established worlds and creatures that usually don't interact in lore - vampires, fae, demons, necromancy, etc. - in a real world setting. This book mostly takes place in St Louis and Chicago but that has little to do with the plot. The author could have left out the location of the city and just made it Anytown, USA and it would have been the same.

The weird take on the Wild Hunt was interesting but seemed really bizarre, like it's this sentient demonic mass that has to be herded by specific fae to find its selected target. It's very much an urban fantasy take on the Wild Hunt lore rather than the mystical fae entity that it's more established as.

The “witty banter” was also wearing. There's a lot of random pop culture references or just the main character trying to be antagonistic in a really immature way and it didn't feel like it fit in this world. There was also a lot of random cooking, incl. making cannabis oil from scratch, that didn't belong.

Overall, because I was thrown into the middle of the world without context and the weird almost sci-fi take on fae lore, I was mostly just confused and didn't enjoy this book that much. It's definitely for readers already familiar with the author and their previous work.