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ARC Review Kat Ross

Review & Giveaway: The Thirteenth Gate

The Thirteenth Gate (Dominion Mysteries Book 2)By Kat Ross
(Dominion Mysteries #2)
Pages: 350
Date Finished: 7/7/17
Genres: Historical, Mystery, Young Adult

LoBook Reviews - Loved Itved It

Synopsis:

Winter 1888. At an asylum in the English countryside, a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper kills an orderly and flees into the rain-soaked night. His distraught keepers summon the Lady Vivienne Cumberland—who’s interviewed their patient and isn’t sure he’s a man at all. An enigmatic woman who guards her own secrets closely, Lady Vivienne knows a creature from the underworld when she sees one. And he’s the most dangerous she’s ever encountered.

As Jack rampages through London, Lady Vivienne begins to suspect what he’s searching for. And if he finds it, the doors to purgatory will be thrown wide open…

Across the Atlantic, an archaeologist is brutally murdered after a Christmas Eve gala at the American Museum of Natural History. Certain peculiar aspects of the crime attract the interest of the Society for Psychical Research and its newest investigator, Harrison Fearing Pell. Is Dr. Sabelline’s death related to his recent dig in Alexandria? Or is the motive something darker?

As Harry uncovers troubling connections to a serial murder case she’d believed was definitively solved, two mysteries converge amid the grit and glamor of Gilded Age New York. Harry and Lady Vivienne must join forces to stop an ancient evil. The key is something called the Thirteenth Gate. But where is it? And more importantly, who will find it first?

Review:

I was a little disappointed by The Daemoniac, the first book in the new series by Kat Ross. I mean just a teeny-tiny bit disappointed, afterall it’s still Kat Ross and she’s amazing. But……… after reading the Forth Element series I was expecting more fantasy, more super natural. In the Daemoniac almost everything “super natural” ends up with an explanation. It’s much more like a Sherlock Holmes novel.

But my disappointment ended with The Thirteenth Gate. Which brings in characters and lore from the Forth Element dropping them into 1888 London and New York. It was a rip-roaring adventure tale filled with mystery and danger.

(I do not think it’s necessary for you to have read the Forth Element books in order to enjoy this book. However, it will add a lot to the background story.)

I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but I will say that it kept me glued to my Kindle and I finished the book in only two days. The characters, the pace, the multiple threads all drive the story forward and I was almost afraid to blink in case I would miss something. The settings chosen for the book are grand and gritty and the contrast really adds to the action. The setting for the climax is so creepy that it gave me goose bumps. Just, wow, what a choice of setting and characters and action!

Two weak points in the book; One do we have to have Lady Vivienne’s smoking thrust into our face every other page? It just took me out of the story and distracted from an otherwise very deeply drawn character. Two Harry is a little too much like Nancy Drew. Even the way her hair is described made me think of the Girl Detective.

Bottom Line:

I loved it! The Thirteenth Gate fired on all cylinders, and kept the excitement coming. I hope we get a third Dominion Mystery because she certainly left it wide open for more adventure. This book totally made up for the slight disappointment I felt when reading the first book… and then some.

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