'Fatal Circle' Persephone Alcmedi #3 by Linda ROBERTSON

From the BLURB:

Destiny sucks. . . .

There was a time when Persephone Alcmedi thought her life was hard to manage, what with wondering how to make sure she took adequate care of both her grandmother and her foster daughter, Beverley, whether she'd end up in the unwanted position of high priestess of a coven, and whether her wærewolf lover, Johnny, would resist the groupies who hang around his band Lycanthropia.

But that was before the fairies started demanding that Seph's frightening, unpredictable ally - the ancient vampire Menessos - be destroyed . . . or the world will suffer. Seph and Menessos are magically bonded, but that's a secret she dares not reveal to her fellow witches lest they be forced to reject her and forbid her use of magic. And, despite the strain this casts on her relationship with Johnny, as a showdown with the fairies nears, she and Menessos badly need the wærewolves as allies.

Life, death, and love are all on the line, but when destiny is calling, it doesn't help to turn away. With the individual threads of their fates twisted inextricably together, can Seph, Johnny, and Menessos keep the world safe from fairy vengeance?

This is the third book in Linda Robertson’s ‘Persephone Alcmedi’ series. This book picks up where ‘Hallowed Circle’ left off – literally the same night that the second book concluded.
Persephone has accepted the mantle of ‘Lustrata’ – a witch who balances the supernatural world, mainly between vampires and werewolves. Persephone has also realized that she is master to Ohio’s vampiric head-honcho; a blood bond with Menessos has turned him servant to her master. Persephone has also accepted her feelings toward werewolf-biker, Johnny, and they have entered into a tentative relationship. Oh, and there are killer fairies hell-bent on their destruction. As Johnny summarizes;

“Wolves in your attic and corpses in your cellar.” Johnny’s hands rested on the black denim at his lean hips. “Just another glorious day in ‘Ohio: The Heart of It All.”

I love this series. It has all the usual elements of an Urban Fantasy; vampires and werewolves – but it stands out in the genre and offers a slightly different flavour of fantasy. In Robertson’s universe the supernatural elements are out in the open – the witch’s council send out PR releases about policy decisions, vampires offer live telecasts of their rituals and two banking heiresses are loud and proud waere (they emulate the Hilton sisters by doing drunken table-top dances at the local lycan bar. Go figure.) I love the touch of realism in Robertson’s world – it’s actually really believable and logically presented, and I never have any trouble suspending belief when I delve into a ‘Persephone’ book.

In this instalment Robertson offers tons of tid-bits about Persephone’s main fellas – Johnny and Menessos. We learn more about their background and shady history, and it makes for very interesting reading. Especially when both Johnny and Menessos make moves on Persephone and let her know they *both* want a romantic entanglement with her. Readers are really inundated with back-story on Johnny and Menessos, which is a happy reprieve after they were both so mysterious in the previous two books. Persephone’s learning about them makes matters of the heart all the more complicated as her heart strings are pulled in two different directions.
Robertson is setting up a very tangled and complicated love triangle for Persephone, and I revel in reading it. At times I thought it hit a little close to the Jean-Claude/Anita/Richard triangle of Laurell K Hamilton’s ‘Anita Blake’ series... but then again, Robertson is a much better writer than Hamilton and I’d rather read her version.

There is a fairly massive cliff-hanger by book’s end, and Persephone is lumped with even more responsibility than when she started. This series is all about reading Persephone get deeper and deeper into her Lustrata role, and I am really enjoying reading her progress. And I don’t mind the cliff-hanger so much because we get the 4th book December this year. Yay!

4/5