They inspire acts of courage and kindness beyond themselves. We can make different, better choices.’” These two guys don’t simply love one another. While both men deal with horrors inflicted by their ancestors, Sebastian reminds Vesper, “‘we aren’t them. What held my interest, as gruesome details of dismemberment were divulged? It was the strength and gentleness, the obvious consideration between Vesper and Sebastian. And yet, the true magic for someone like me? As my stomach turned, I was compelled to read on! Are they lying? I don’t know… which made my skin crawl. And Grandpa has just reappeared, along with a sorceress, implying they also want the evil books destroyed. What’s worse, as teens Vesper and Noc ran from their mother and grandfather who lead a sect of the necromancers. These two guys don’t simply love one another. Unfortunately, in book 1, Unhallowed, Sebastian had to bind himself to one of the books to contain its evil, and has no idea how this may imperil him. In fact the library was built as a container for these evil objects.

Vesper’s brother, Noc, who has too many tentacles to pass as human, is another employee, along with an important cast of side characters.

They are searching for four magical books that were created by a necromancer in the mid 1800s to bring about mankind’s destruction. Both he and Vesper Rune, his human-like, but tentacled lover, are employees of a library dedicated to neutralizing dark magic. On page one, where Sebastian Rath attends a murdered person’s funeral because the deceased was once a friend and co-worker, before betraying Sebastian, we know we can trust Sebastian’s ethics. Please read them in order to understand the increasingly complex plot and, of course, to get full pleasure from both. Yet Unseen is as frightfully sublime as Unhallowed, the first novel in his Rath & Rune series, both set in the early 1900s. In fact, I avoided scary movies like the plague. Hawk, I’d never enjoyed having goosebumps from fear.

Unhallowed by Jordan L. Hawk