Guestreview by Dan
TITLE: It Spells Trouble
SERIES: Mages and Mates, Book Two
AUTHOR: Andy Gallo
PUBLISHER: Gallorious Readers, LLC
LENGTH: 291 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2023
BLURB:
Mage Jannick Pederson thought it was a simple assignment: help the gryphon leader find some missing human children and then go home. A noble cause, even if he didn’t much like the abrasive jerk. So why didn’t someone tell him he’d be working closely with the leader’s son instead? That hot piece of perfection could make even happily-single Jannick give up his no-strings-attached ways.
Gryphon shifter Conall Arwan has simple goals for his life: get his PhD in pediatric shifter social work and stay off the radar of his disapproving father. When his father orders him to work with a hot but arrogant mage to find missing human kids, all Conall sees is how it pushes back his graduation date. Again. And even if the mage unexpectedly turns out to be not so bad—and maybe even a little sweet—there’s still no future for them. Conall’s dad has plans for him and they don’t include getting involved with a sexy, infuriating mage.
But fate has other ideas.
REVIEW:
I liked Bart’s brother Jan in the first book and was super happy to see him get his own story in book two. This is the second of what I’m guessing will be, at minimum, four books based on a something that is going on in the story. I’ve got my guess who the other two books will focus on, but I might be wrong.
Jan has been tapped by his father to investigate the disappearance of several human children in the Hagerstown, Maryland area. The only problem with the investigation is that the disappearances have been occurring in an area which falls under the territory of a Gryphon Alpha who is a total condescending ass to not only everyone around him, but also to his own family. One of his daughters is being kept basically prisoner because she hasn’t married, and her father is trying to sell her off to another old gryphon who is as bad as himself. He has a bunch of children, many very similar to himself, and then there is Conall. Conall is pursuing a degree to do social work with children. He hopes to be able to make a difference in children’s lives. Conall’s father strongly opposes the college thing and does his best to derail it any time he gets a chance. The perfect opportunity has appeared with the disappearance of the children and when his father requests help from the Mages, and Jan is sent to investigate the situation, the father assigns Conall to work directly with Jan. He even goes as far as to tell his son to sleep with Jan to gain some sort of upper hand.
Little does the father expect that fate will step in and once Jan and Conall get started, there will be no stopping them.
I started the story a few nights ago, while camping fairly close to Hagerstown, Maryland as a coincidence and stayed up far too late considering I had a long day driving the next day. As soon as we got to the next campground, my kindle was out. I didn’t actually finish it until this morning, release day +1 because I forced myself to leave the end until this morning because I was enjoying the story so much.
I highly recommend this book and hope the next one is out soon! The teaser cover is already on Amazon, so I can hope!
RATING: 
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