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Review: Pawn of the Phoenix

by Jamie McLachlan

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Thank you to Penner Publishing for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Publish Date: 9th February 2016

Title: Pawn of the Phoenix
Author: Jamie McLachlan
Publisher: Penner Publishing 
Book: 2 of The Memory Collector Series
Genre: Supernatural/Historical/Murder mystery/Romance
Found: Series
Rating: 4.5 Voodoos

Braxton, 1903.
The serial killer known only as the Phoenix continues to roam the streets and a new victim falls prey. For Moira and Detective Keenan Edwards, still on the hunt for the Phoenix, the rules have changed. The killer remains beyond their grasp.
Moira is willing to give into her fierce attraction to Keenan. However, the detective proves to be more reluctant despite a moment of heated passion. Then discovery of a secret Keenan never planned to share creates an unwelcome rift between the new lovers.
Keenan isn’t the only one hiding something. In this continuation of the Memory Collector series, Moira makes a startling disclosure about her past. This revelation will not only test the boundaries of love, but might also prove to be the clue that will finally unravel the mystery of the Phoenix.

-Goodreads

My review for book one in The Memory Collector series, Mind of the Phoenix, can be found HERE.

I considered a dignified review, but eh.
WHAT DID YOU DO?! I don’t want that epilogue!!! Take it back! Make it go away! I liked the end of the last chapter better!

So, Jamie McLachlan promised me on twitter that we’d learn more about Keenan in this book and boy do we! Though, Moira sporadically still calls him the Detective, which means he still feels just as mysterious and sexy as he did in the first book. We don’t learn all his sordid past – there’s a mention of an unhappy childhood – but we do learn something major. And I’ve taken a long time to work out how to address my next comment without spoilers. You know how sometimes something happens and you just know they were being stupid and they should have done something else? Well I thought we had that situation, but turns out we didn’t! Not really, and it was good she didn’t burn it….who knew?!

Confession time. I realised I had this in my collection right before I started the second Vampire Academy series. (in fact, I’d made no record of having it, I only discovered it when looking for something to do while I was in standstill traffic!!) So I went into this book attempting to ‘get it out of the way’ so I could cram Bloodlines in before my next review book. I decided that this was close enough to my having read the first one and that I’d not need to re-read it. I was only half right with this and I’ll have to re-read them both before the third that’s for sure! HOWEVER, even though I entered this book while wanting to read another, it still pulled me right in! So much so that, when I hit the mid point of the book there was a happy event that I thought meant that things would go massively wrong afterwards. Usually when I find these I put the book down for a day or two to build up to what’s happening next. This one I simply put down over night! It was in my hands again within a 12 hour period,

I love the development of Moira and Keenan’s relationship and her character development. They have a lot more in common than she first realised and while she’s adamant she’s a horrid, selfish person she’s getting better, by the end of the book she’s so different. She’s also stopped obsessing over who desires her, which is lovely! But perhaps it’s because we meet so few new people? Anyway, she’s grown on me a lot and I’m currently devastated over everything right now. Still love Keenan too! I mentioned in my review of book one how amazing he was, well he’s just as amazing here. He has an understandable wobble, but he more than makes up for it.
There are no other murder mysteries to solve in this book, but there’s some drama in another way – this book is more about bringing the main characters together, which is an odd thing for a book 2. I hope that doesn’t mean that book 3 is about pulling them apart!!!!!!!

I also noticed something that was forgotten there at the end. I’m not sure if it was a character forget or an author forget, but we’ll see!

And, the afore mentioned epilogue? May have ruined everything. EXCEPT! Moira is strong. We know this. I so desperately want to have faith in her getting through. I hope it doesn’t break anybody though, we have fragile people here and I’m one of them! I also hope this is a trilogy, because I can’t handle another ending like this!

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