Hunt on Dark Waters

 Hunt on Dark Waters by Katee Robert, 320 pages.

Evelyn is a witch who makes bad decisions. Her latest bad decision is stealing her extremely dangerous vampire lover's family heirlooms after a fighting and then jumping through (and exploding) a portal to an unknown location said vampire situationship was hiding in her home. The next thing she knows she's being fished out of the sea by a handsome sea captain at the head of a ship full of monster hunters and being given a legally required join-or-die ultimatum, so her day really isn't getting any less complicated. However, soon she's developing serious feelings for uptight Captain Bowen, and the return of those feelings is rocking the pillars of belief he's built his world around. 

I had to rewrite this review when it became very obvious to me that most of my gripes with this book come down to the fact that I am NOT the target audience for the "romantasy" genre. The writing was solid and the action was good, although the plot didn't go in the direction I expected (which I feel like is more the result of a very misleading blurb than anything else). I thought it was an extremely interesting choice to start with urban fantasy and then jump right into a portal fantasy, and that choice alone is honestly what has me the most interested in reading later books in this series. I was very compelled by the world-building, and wish I had gotten to see more of it, rather than quite so much romance, but again I suspect this is mostly a genre preference. I will say the fact that pretty much the entire plot hinges on a love-at-first-sight plot made it a little harder for me to buy into. Also, this was marketed as a pirate romance but the Cŵn Annwn are absolutely not pirates by any stretching of the definition, as they are literally the government. All gripes aside, this was still a fairly fun book to read and it had enough gems that I did recommend it to a few people I know in real life. A fun summer read with a very inaccurate blurb.

Bad Monkey

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen  317 pp.

Andrew Yancy former detective for the Miami and Key West Police, has been demoted to restaurant inspector, aka Roach Patrol for assaulting his ex-girlfriend's husband in a unique way. After a strange turn of events Yancy is left with a human arm in his freezer, an arm that was caught by a fisherman. Yancy thinks the explanation for the arm's existence (boating accident) is bogus. He is determined to prove it was murder in hopes that he may win back his old job on the police force. While doing that he has to deal with the crazy ex-girlfriend; a property developer who has ruined the view from his house; the widow of the frozen arm; a voodoo witch whose young lovers tend to end up dead; his new love, a Miami medical examiner; a hurricane; and the Bad Monkey who was once an extra in Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. It's a convoluted wild ride with hilarious twists. This was the first adult novel of Hiaasen's that I have read after enjoying his children's books. Now I have to go back to read the older ones. I listened to the audiobook version which was read by Arte Johnson (yes, the "Laugh-In" guy) and had lots of laughs while driving to and from work.