In the world of the Night Huntress novels of Cat and Bones there is another set of incredible characters. Meet the electric Leila, a.k.a the Fantastic Frankie, who only wishes that she could have someone in her life who could withstand her touch. Every time she comes in skin-to-skin contact with someone, she relives their worst sins. It’s enough to make anyone lonely, never being able to have a normal life. She makes her way through life as one half of a gymnast act in the traveling circus. 

The other half of the act is Marty, a dwarf vampire who has been secretly keeping Frankie alive. She finds this out the hard way when she is kidnapped by more creatures of the night. The mastermind behind the abduction wants Frankie to use her freaky powers to determine where Vlad Tepesh will be most vulnerable. 

In this introduction to the new characters, I was underwhelmed. I absolutely loved the idea of Leila’s powers, and who doesn’t love a good Dracula story? But the personalities were lacking in depth, the romance and tensions felt forced, and the fact that someone else found out about Frankie’s power was unbelievable. I would have loved to see real development of Leila in particular, and so am hoping the next book is better. 

I wanted a (trashy) smutty paranormal romance, and that’s what I got. I’m a sucker (ha-ha) for vampires in any form so I enjoyed it, I guess? However, it was very rushed in places.