Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: The Lady Under the Lake
SERIES: Quest Investigations
AUTHOR: E.J. Russell
PUBLISHER: Reality Optional Press
LENGTH: 189 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 23, 2022
BLURB:
This client is all wet…
After receiving a hot tip on the whereabouts of my almost-boyfriend’s nearly-ex-husband (hey, I told you—it’s complicated!), I thought my love life was finally coming up for air. But when we stake out the remote lake, it’s not the ex who surfaces.
It’s the Faerie King’s long-missing mother (and I mean really long, as in double-digit centuries), and she wants to hire Quest Investigations. Since one of my bosses is the king’s brother, he has a tsunami of…feelings about her as a potential client, and refuses to take the case. Instead, he passes it to me.
Yes! However…
Should I be thrilled at the vote of confidence or suspicious that he’s tossing me in the deep end without a life preserver, the better to punish the woman who abandoned her kid all those years ago?
You know what? It doesn’t matter. I may be Quest’s token human, but I’ve proven I can get the job done, so I dive right in. Then the lady explains what she wants me to do: find her missing child.
Seriously? I expected more of a challenge. All I have to do is introduce her to the king and bingo, case closed. But when she says, “Not that one,” this little family drama threatens to send ripples throughout the supernatural community—especially with my boss in over his head as the prime suspect in a fae kidnapping.
As if things weren’t complicated enough… Remember that nearly-ex? When he shows up and muddies the waters, I’m faced with a choice: I can solve this case or I can finally hook my almost-boyfriend.
Dammit.
The Lady Under the Lake is the third in the Quest Investigations M/M mystery series, a spinoff of E.J. Russell’s Mythmatched paranormal rom-com story world. It contains no on-page sex or violence, and although there is a romantic subplot, it is not a romance. The series is best read in order.
REVIEW:
Note: This is the third book in this series and doesn’t work as a standalone. The books should be ready in order.
Matthew Steinitz, aka Hugh Mann, really enjoys his work at Quest – the investigation service for the supernatural world. While he’s had his ups and downs, he’s hoping that he can help his almost boyfriend Lachlan Brodie, unwilling king of the Selkies, locate his erstwhile husband Wyn, so that can have the kind dissolve their handfasting bond and leave Lachlan and Matt free to pursue their relationship. But when the arrive to try to find Wyn in a lake, the instead seem to conjure Cerys, the long lost mother of the current King of Faerie and she’s looking for her lost children.
Niall, the king’s half-brother is NONE too please to see Cerys, who he thinks abandoned her son. So he throws the case to Matt. Thankfully Matt’s colleagues, Eleri the dryad and Jordan the werewolf along with his new pet, the hellhound Doop, are there to help him. They also need to call on the assistance of a friend who they rescued in the last case. There are lots of new things for Matt to discover and if he can solve this case, this will make his career at Quest and keep him in good stead with the supes.
There are twists and turns galore and Matt and his team have to figure who is are the good guys and who is the bad. There are certainly plenty of culprits that need to be taken to task. But most importantly, they need to save Cerys’s child and hopefully in the process, move along Lachlan’s sundering so that he and Matt can move along with their lives as well 😉
This is another thoroughly enjoyable story in this universe. Matt is such a great character. He’s smart and hard working and so enamored of the supernatural world. He really wants to do his best and he’d really like to move things along with Lachlan. I loved seeing the characters from past stories and trying to figure out who the long lost child of Cerys was that was hiding in plain sight. Lachlan always tries to do the right thing and finally it’s looking like things might move forward and he can put the past behind him and move on with his life too! This world is so fun and I love discovering new things about it in each book. I can’t wait for the final installment in this particular series, but I hope this author continues to give us fun books in this universe. Highly recommended for mystery lovers who like their romance slow burning!
RATING: 
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