Teagan Kearney

This just wasn't any good. I am reluctant to tear down an honest work like this but I feel even worse just leaving a bad rating with no explanation.

The author wrote the book for the purpose of being a book. with words and stuff. The book has no interesting story to tell.

The main character has been a completely passive observer up to chapter 22 where I dropped it.
She is just the point of view but the story isn't even written in first-person. It reads as if it was supposed to be first-person but it's third-person.

Elements of the magic as well as the competence of the MC with it are arbitrary and adjusted on the fly.
There are these flash-back stories of her past incarnations where she was in love with the same person who is her destiny or somesuch but it is never explained why any of this is in any way relevant. I am sure there will be some sort of explanation at the end but there just isn't anything interesting or intriguing to hang onto throughout most of the book because we just don't know. Why the hell should I care what happened to her previous incarnation in the 1600s.

The few actions the MC takes are contradictory and erratic. She doesn't seem to have any kind of defined personality beyond a few very crude outlines. Especially her feeling toward other characters repeatedly make unexplained 180° turns.

It is all so inconsistent and confused that it sometimes felt more like reading a trippy dreamscape. I got this feeling that everything was off somehow like in a dream where all the details are wrong and changing everywhere.

The blurb talks about a supposed battle against her enemy but there hasn't been any kind of battle whatsoever. The bad guy just does whatever he wants and nobody stops him and certainly not the MC. And we have no idea what the police and the other vampires do about it either. The reader, and I think MC as well, are both left in the dark completely about what is even being done about the whole situation. I couldn't have made a tense situation more boring if I tried.

In the quoted reviews from the blurb, there is talk about things being fresh and original which is just absurd. This is just a bunch of the most tired urban fantasy tropes glued together badly. The only originality results from the inability to assemble all the parts into a coherent and interesting story.
All the other supposed qualities also sound like they could've been written by review bots. They are certainly not talking about the same book I just read.

As I haven't read the entire story I can't definitively conclude that there won't be some mind-boggling twist that puts every detail in a different light and amazingly assembles them into a new picture or something but I very much doubt it.

I am not a fan of the whole fated mates from many previous lives trope. I think it is overused and doesn't add anything to a story. I'd much rather see the characters interact and actually build a relationship than read about how they had a passionate relationship in their previous lives. You can do both of course, but this book doesn't really build a relationship in the present.
If you are an absolute sucker for this trope this might be worth a read to you.

While we are at it this book does a whole lot of telling while trying to kinda show it. You can see the author is aware of this pitfall but she still doesn't manage to avoid it. "Show, don't tell" is important because showing is a whole lot more interesting and engaging than telling. But if you show stuff in a way that is just as boring as dry exposition you haven't won anything. It's about keeping to the spirit of a concept, not the letter.

Now that I think of it I am quite surprised how I could've been so bored even while there was quite a bit happening. I was even bored reading about friends dying at the end which is when I ultimately dropped the book.

I am not entirely sure how much of my boredom could be ascribed to this just not being a book for me. It seems like this should've been a story I find interesting.

tl;dr:
This all sounds more scathing than I probably mean it to. The book is not horrible. It's just not at all what the blurb promises. It doesn't know what it wants, it's slow going with very little to keep my attention and it's full of inconsistencies.
In one word, mediocre.… (mer)

I truly love a rags to riches book and Casey's story was just perfect! Casey had been abandoned by her drug addictive mom and grew up in one foster home after another. As an adult, she had her own tiny apartment, worked two jobs, and ended up accepting an invitation to Ian's boss's party only to find her face on the first page of several newspapers! I did not like Ian from the start with his pushy ways, but loved his boss as he tried to correct the wrong done by Ian and his money hungry adulterous wife.… (mer)

Sorcerous Deeds
Adept Solutions, Book 2
By: Teagan Kearney
Narrated by: Elisabeth Lagelee
This is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary.
If you like vampires, elves, suspense, shape-shifting monsters, and great fantasy then this is for you. It is a small book and just right for a book before bed, when you get that brief time of quiet, or on the beach, or on the plane. I read book one but I think you could read this without reading book one but I think you would enjoy it more by reading book one first.
The narrator was good at performing several voices.… (mer)

Hekate's Chalice
Adept Solutions, Book 1
By: Teagan Kearney
Narrated by: Elisabeth Lagelee
This is an audible book I requested and the review is voluntary.
I found this book fun and enjoyable. A PI is hired to find a supernatural object but they are not the only one who is looking for it. It has humor, action, great fantasy, great characters, good plot, and it is a short novel. A good taste for what the series will be about. I liked it!
The narrator was good and was easy to understand.… (mer)