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Furtive Affairs by Tonia Stark

"One night will change them all."

Ivana Harper has never been one for either normality, or propriety. Labelled unladylike and unmarriageable by Mauverton's gentlewomen, she has come to terms with her future as a spinster. But the night the town is attacked by a vengeful spirit, her world changes drastically. With the arrival of Lucian Reed, a spirit hunter and Magixus from beyond the forest, Ivana is introduced to the world of magic.

Secrets buried for decades come to light as Ivana digs deeper. The truth of the town council's many acts of crime, the extinction of magic in her town, and Lucian Reed's mysterious past and connection to Mauverton. But she finds herself drawn to the truth and entangles herself further into Lucian Reed's life of magic and secrecy.

To save those she loves, she may have to sacrifice more than she's willing: her soul.

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, Action

Another novel by Tonia Stark-the first to be featured here in this little book twice! Now this book (as the media on the side indicates) won a Watty Award this past year! Guess some quality work does get noticed after all! Kidding (only slightly) but anyways back to the topic!

The world of Furtive Affairs is set in the same world as another novel This Blinding Smoke but that doesn't mean you won't be in store for many, many surprises in this novel! Its the same worod yes, but set at a different time And has its own issues. Rather than the battles between Emorti and demons there is conflict between normal humans and Magixus-those humans that can use magic. In this pre-TBS era magic is against the law. Dun-dun-dun. So anyone who thinks "oh it's the same world it's just gonna repeat the conflict" and whatever I shall say this now-you are WRONG!

Moving on from that I want to give credit to the greatest opening line I've seen in a very, very long time."There were many people who wanted to kill Adrian Harper, but on this night of October fourteenth, there was no one who wanted him dead more than his very own sister."

Ms. Stark had a very fabulous attention grabber and when I first read it I laughed out loud. Even know I still crack a smile. The quoted line is from the first chapter where our heroine Ivanna Harper is ready to beat the life out of her older brother who is engaging in some very shameful activity. Now onto one of my favorite aspects of this book though the chapter had some very nice touches of humor the inciting incident happened fast and we get to see a very scary monster-thing come into the town. I admit it was a point where I had to stop reading, catch my breath, shove down my growing horror and then plunge ahead. The way this book was able to go from moments of humor, happiness and overall light-heartedness to something dark, morbid and terrifying thrilling is amazing! As a reader I love it when there are so many different emotional tones in a novel. I don't want all gloom and doom but I don't want nothing but sunshine either. I need both and more and this book delivered it to me on a sliver platter.

I laughed at witty one liners, I ducked under the covers when the monster came along, I even shouted at characters for various reasons many times. (Got some weird looks too but I didn't care much.)This book made me feel a variety of things, good, bad and just plain ugly. I find that, that is a hugely important part of book. Making people feel things even though the events aren't true.

Another part of this book I strongly enjoyed (actually I take that back it was my favorite part) was the characters in it. Let's start with our main girl Ivanna.

Now I have to say that I personally do not relate very much to Ms. Harper at all. But here's the thing, I do not think you need to relate with a character to love them. I think they just have to feel real, feel honest and Ivanna did.

She's such a strong woman and I'm so glad to see that because in recent PRN romance those are lacking. She doesn't need a man in her life to make her feel complete and happy. She can doing girly things like sew and whatnot but she spent her childhood climbing trees and she's a good shot with a bow an arrow. Ivanna has strong opinions and convictions and instead of being some graceful, ethereal female she's pretty normal. She's had some embarrassing mishaps socially (involving burning a certain lady's curtains..) but she doesn't let her mess ups define her! Ivanna can accept they happened and move on from them. Not to say she's perfect by any means, she's sometimes foolish and makes attempts to right wrongs all on her own and doesn't often think that challenging the most powerful people in her town might be a bad idea.

Then you've got her siblings Elosie and Adrian both of whom I dearly love. Elosie is more introverted but it's not shown she's more or less than someone else because of it. Adrian's a drunk but he's got a reason for that too. One that makes a ton of sense even if I still would love to jump in the book, kick him in the ass and tell him to man up! Outside of the Harper family we have Katrina Rosewood and at first glance you'd think she's the classic harlot mean girl who opposes Ivanna at every turn and is basically there to make Ivanna feel inferior when in reality Ivanna is better than her. Well think again! She's probably the character I relate to the most and I want to thank the author at this time for not portraying someone who likes pretty things as weak or shallow for it. Katrina could have been a cliche mean girl who was just there to remind the reader of how great Ivanna is. Instead she showed us there is more than one kind of woman and more than one way to be strong. We need more characters like that. There are huge differences between her and Ivanna but they aren't portrayed as less desirable or worse to have. There only shown as different.

Then Lucian Reed, where do I begin? He's one of the greatest romantic leads I've ever seen. He's kind, smart, sometimes way too stupid when it comes to manly pride (I won't elaborate cuz spoilers) and he's got a hard time forgiving people for messing up. He also has a super surprising backstory which left me cursing at my screen because I didn't expect what just happened. He's got a badass introduction too but I'll let you see it for yourself when you go and read the book. *wink*

Another thing about this book that I loved was the spirit they were fighting. It scared me because you literally had no way of knowing where it was until it was there. It could have been inside anyone at any time and that added huge amounts of suspense. The wondering if this place they were in was really safe or just an illusion of safety; if the people around could be trusted and all that good stuff! The mystery of who the spirit was and what it was after kept me on the edge of my seat with so many twists and turns as well as a reveal that left me just as disbelieving as Ivanna.

The only real weak point I can spot really was how some things seemed to happen fast. Like Adrian's character arch-I didn't fully understand it right away. He was the sort who ran from responsibility when his father died so after loosing their mom I wondered exactly why it was different this time. I wish that would have been explained better. There is one other character who had a similar deal but spoilers so I'm not going to mention him here.

That aside though Furtive Affairs is a thrilling paranormal read that will leave you falling in love with the characters, shipping Lucivanna like there's no tomorrow, spinning theories and ideas of where the story is going off to and getting pissed whenever the chapter ends with a cliffhanger. I'd recommend this for anyone who loves paranormal, romance, and mysteries. And on a random note today is Ms. Stark's birthday so you all should pop over and wish her well!

Write on =)