Romancing the Null (The Outlier Prophecies #1)
4.5 stars, actually.
So here’s the deal. Urban Fantasy with Accidental Death Actuaries? Concept is so cool. And there’s a werewolf detective involved who is packless and that sets up all kinds of delicious emotional conflict as well.
Truthfully, the blurb doesn’t do much for me so I might not have picked up the book if I came across it randomly. However, I came across a few posts by the author and liked what she had to say on other things so I took a risk. And I’m glad I did 🙂
The first third of this book really draws you in. The whole bureaucracy-built-on-predictions thing is a hoot. Kate Hale as a character is interesting. She comes with the baggage of having been demoted due to a prior love affair with a work colleague so she has something to prove. She also has a fun cousin Ali who keeps shoving her in the right direction.
The half star is lost in the latter part of the book where all the different factors regarding which oracles were predicting what and thus Kate and Becker were doing certain actions to counter various predictions got tangled up and a bit fuzzy for me. This made the final confrontation with this book’s villain a bit fuzzy as a result.
But I can’t deny that the hint of a greater challenge to come, as well as certain developments in Kate and Becker’s relationship already had me pushing the buy button on the next in the series. Definitely a cute take on Urban Fantasy with some action and references to statistics and actuary stuff.
What I Should Have Said 