Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Death Mask
SERIES: Black Harbinger MC #1
AUTHOR: Lexi Ander
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 160 Pages
RELEASE DATE: November 9, 2016
BLURB:
Grim Misery, the President of the Black Harbinger Motorcycle Club, discovers a wounded warlock and four werepups aboard the club’s LSD shipment. And the news kept getting better and better. Not only is the warlock sitting on the edge of death, he’s illegally bonded to the werepups, which could trigger a war with the werewolves—and he turns out to be Misery’s estranged husband.
Years ago, Griffin turned Misery away to be with another warlock by the name of Marcheso Aldo. Misery left everything behind, even his family, but couldn’t shake the heartbreak Griffin caused. With Griffin thrust back into Misery’s life, he discovers things aren’t as they seem… and everything is about to get much, much worse.
REVIEW:
I liked this book and the characters that the author created for the story. The main character, Grim Misery, is the President of a motorcycle club made up of different types of beings, ranging from a Hedge Witch to I believe an Elf. The motorcycle club is the go between on an LSD pipeline providing LSD to vampires. In this story older vamps need to drink LSD laced human blood for longevity. Interested concept, but kind of mentioned as an aside, and not that crucial to the story. It is what, or I should say who, is in the truck with the LSD shipment that is important. Grim’s husband, Griffin, threw him out for another warlock over a hundred years ago, and Grim hasn’t seen him since. Now here he is in the back of the truck covered in blood with four baby werewolves.
I’m going to keep it real and be honest. For me, there were some definite holes in the world building in this one. I felt the entire way through the book that I might have picked up book two in a series, because I never really figured out what the Black Harbinger MC was all about and how the club worked. We learned it had a wide variety of beings as members, but only in snippets. Being a motorcycle guy, I’m always looking for reads that have motorcycles involved, and with paranormal aspects it makes it even better. But there wasn’t much of anything about the club or the motorcycles in this one at all.
Instead, we had a story about a lost love returning. That part was a good thing, but then we had lots of backstory about where he has been etc., that still in my opinion left the reader with tons of unanswered questions. For example, was Griffin in a warehouse across town the entire time he was held prisoner? I was quite confused. The book is listed as book one of a new series, so I’m guessing we might get more information in the next book.
As it stands I’m going to have to call this one as Good, or 3.0 on our scale. It had a lot of promise, but I felt a little let down by the actual execution. I liked the writer’s style, but there seemed to be way too much thrown at the reader…much of it rather vaguely…which detracted from the overall read.
RATING: 
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