Charlie is faced with a couple of tough cases this time around - both with some surprising results. Her life with Reyes is humming along mostly smoothly, but she determined to find out more about his past - which leads to yet another surprise!

I sort of wished the cases had wrapped up with an intertwined plot somehow. I feel like this one stretched Charlie too far, and I didn't really fall into each individual case and get swept away by it. I got tossed back and forth between the two instead.

I did enjoy learning more about Reyes. His past keeps getting more and more complicated - I hope we're at the end of the earthly complications because it's getting hard to follow his life story. I do love how the relationship between Charlie and Reyes is growing. I also think Cookie is really becoming a co-star in some cases instead of just a side character - I love Cookie.

Nocturnal is quite a rollercoaster ride of paranormal suspense mixed with a good dose of horror. It starts out like a gritty cop drama, with Bryan and his partner, Pookie, showing up at the scene of a gruesome murder. But even though they are the best in the city, they don't get assigned to the case. In fact, they're told to stay away from it.

So, of course, they don't. They follow along, getting themselves deeper and deeper into a world they never even imagined existed. Monsters, a hooded hunter, a rising King all wait along the way. 

This book isn't for the squeamish - there were a few times my stomach turned at the scenes and descriptions - so be warned. But it's well worth it, and I just had to know what was going to happen next. 

My only complaint about the audio was that Pookie (one of the detectives) sounded exactly like Mike Wazowski - the little green guy from Monsters Inc - so that is what I pictured every time.

While You Sleep turned into so much more than I ever expected. In this small Scottish town there seemed to be more secrets than residents, and American artist Zoe Adams brings a few along with her. Renting a house she soon finds out is supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the current owner's long-ago relatives. Relatives that were heavily into the occult. Rumors of a child promised to the devil that disappeared - or died - no one seems to be really sure.

Zoe finds herself caught up in the ghosts of the house, or maybe just caught up in her own mind. Stephanie Merritt expertly weaves the story around both possibilities and left me wondering which was really true. Was Zoe being visited by spirits or was she just going crazy?

The paranormal and haunting aspects weren't too over the top though. There were enough entirely human elements for Zoe to worry about while she was there. As the tale wraps up, secrets come out, a town is forced to face its past, and Zoe is left wondering - about a lot of things.

I loved this story! It was perfectly eerie and gothic, with just the right touch of reality mixed in to make me think this could all really happen. I highly recommend this for lovers of a good book to read during a late night storm - it will definitely set the mood for you.

**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**