Lala's Book Corner: Hallowed Circle by Linda Robertson

"And you think beauty pageants are scary?

Persephone Alcmedi has been persuaded to compete for the position of High Priestess of the Cleveland, Ohio, coven -- now that the former priestess, Vivian Diamond, has strangely gone missing. Unfortunately, there are a few small problems with the idea. Not only does Seph know rather more about Vivian's disappearance than the other witches realize, but the epic struggle she's just survived has left her with some highly unusual powers -- ones that could be dangerous to reveal. Despite her reluctance, she agrees to participate, if only to prevent snooty Hunter Hopewell, an obnoxious but talented witch, from ending up in the winner's circle. Can Seph hide her secrets -- including her connection to the master vampire-wizard Menessos -- from the terrifyingly wise judges? Plus, there's her rock 'n' roll werewolf boyfriend, Johnny, and some angry fairies to deal with....

Once the competition begins, a finalist turns up dead. It looks as if one of the contestants is willing to do anything -- including murder -- to win. Suddenly Seph has even more on her plate than she thought: from solving a murder to working out what her new powers really are...and exactly why they're creating so much havoc in her love life."

From GoodReads.

I just finished this book, like 10min ago and I'm still coming back down from a intense book high LOL. I loved book 1, Vicious Circle, and this second installment of the Persephone Alcmedi series just made this series a must buy for me.

You can read my review of Vicious Circle here.

I have to be honest and say that the beginning, up to the first third of the book was a bit slow and patchy for me. Some of my favorite characters took a while to show and I missed them and it also took a while for the story to build up and reach a nice steady pace. There was a lot of preparing ground for the end and when I was done with the book I could actually appreciate it.

All my faves were back, Nana, HOT werewolf Johnny, cute Beverly, Seph's Were Friends... I was really happy to see them all back. Johnny showed up as flirtatious as ever, intent on having Seph for himself and it was very enjoyable to see his advances and her slowing yielding in his hands, and what hands, let me tell ya!

I really like Persephone as the heroine. She is flawed, but has such a heart and sense of right and wrong that I truly admire. I love how she gets set straight by her totem animal, a jackal, and that she is strong enough to accept being wrong and trying to fix things.

I don't want to delve too much into the plot, because I don't think I could do that without spoiling things. However, I can say that it was awesome to see the inner workings of the Witches' Covenstead, getting to know more about the Weres and getting a better understand of the Stain Persephone has, that connects her to the Vamps.

From the build up and the developments in this novel, I can see that there is so much to happen. I can't wait to get my hands on the next books and read more about them all.

As I said on my review of Book 1, this is not a groundbreaking series nor it reinvents the wheel. But Linda has definitely taken much thats has been proven right and true in the Urban Fantasy genre and made it her own. I love how this series is progressing and I have to say I LOVED seeing Seph and Johnny getting more intimate... Damn, that was hot! hehe

I give this Book 4 Loveys!

Smut Level 2.5/5

***You can win a SIGNED copy of this book here!***

***Contest ends Jan. 9th!***

Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you soon!

xoxo,