Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: The Knight Reign
SERIES: One Warlock’s Love Story #5
AUTHOR: Shad O. Walker
PUBLISHER: Torquere Press
LENGTH: 191 Pages
BLURB:
In a world where shape shifters are openly bisexual, vampires have insatiable sex drives, and warlocks emit pheromones that make everyone around them horny, Zander Knight finds himself at a crossroads. He emerges from a coma with the realization that that he may be the only living being in the world that is part vampire, part magical and part shape shifter.
Unable to understand or control his new powers, his condition puts him at odds with his family who is at the very center of a movement to end supernatural race mixing. If that weren’t enough, he is being forced to choose between his place in the House of Aleph and his position as the Alpha mate for his lover and pack leader, Zuri Tau Long.
Just as Zander’s world is changing, so is the supernatural community. New threats arise as different factions of vampires, shifters and magicals fight to take their place in the new order. Zander is left deciding between fighting for his family and friends, and fighting to save the world that he has come to know and love. This is more than just one warlock’s love story – this is a supernatural adventure.
REVIEW:
I’m going to keep it real. I really like this author, but I’d have to say that although I liked this book, I didn’t by any means love it. In prep for reading it and doing this review, I re-read books 1-4 and I’ve got to be honest and say that this current one is my least favorite of the 5.
Let’s start with my issues. This book was WAY too busy. There were so many things going on that I couldn’t keep track. There are a couple sub-plots that I didn’t get at all. I understand the author is probably setting us up for future events in future books, but they didn’t have any relevance on the current story and they threw me off. I’m talking about the sub-plot with the two human men/government agents who are narrowing in on “discovering” the supernatural community through the bodies that are turning up, and also the sub-plot with the two shifters who are experimenting on other shifters. Then there is the thing that happens with Zander and Gaia in the garden. Interesting side trip, but then it was never mentioned again? Plus the author killed off another collateral character, and I’ve never forgiven the author for killing off the last one! And don’t get me started on how many open story lines there are at the end of this book. Definitely a set of cliff hangers, and I HATE cliff hangers.
There was good stuff as well. We got to continue the stories of our characters from the previous books, particularly the story of Zander and Tau. The supernatural community is coming apart at the seams. Vampires, Shifters and Magicals have begun a civil war. Roving gangs of vampires and shifters are out to kill each other, and the magical community has been taken over by a truly evil man out for himself, not caring whether or not the stories he spreads about the other races is true. But what will happen when that man’s plotting gets out of hand and large numbers of supernaturals start dying?
I’m going to have to rate this one lower than the others in the series and give it a 3.5, which on our scale means that I like it and it has above average writing. I wouldn’t be able to give it a 4.0 and recommend this book without reservations. I’m hoping in the next book in the series that some of these loose storylines are tied up and the overall story becomes a little more focused. If you’ve read the other four books in the series, you will want to read this one, but this is definitely not a standalone book. You have to read all of them, and read them in order. For details on the previous books, check out my Series Review here.
In conclusion, as I said, the book is well written, but is just way too busy for me.
RATING: 
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