Release Day Review: Bayou Blues by Sierra Dean

 

Bayou Blues
(Genie McQueen #1)
Sierra Dean
Release: March 20, 2015
Goodreads Amazon

When your sister has saved the world, you have a lot to live up to.

Genie McQueen thought she’d seen it all after helping her big sister Secret stop the Apocalypse. The dead walked, New York City burned, and things nearly went to hell in a hand basket. After it was all over, the world knew about vampires and werewolves, and Genie’s life would never be the same.

But now, three years later, someone doesn’t want werewolves or any supernatural creatures to live alongside humans. A new anti-werewolf church with a charismatic leader and a cult-like following has declared open season on Genie’s whole species. When a member of her pack is kidnapped, she decides it’s time to stop going with the flow and to step up and fight for her people.

Tagging along for the ride is a handsome troublemaker, Wilder Shaw, a pack outsider who just wants to save his brother, but will leave Genie’s head spinning in the process.

Equally troubling are the ghosts of her past she can’t quite shake, the nightmarish figures who haunt her even when she’s wide awake, and a dark magic inside her she hasn’t yet learned to tame.

Things are about to get messy in the bayou.

Review: I'm so excited to be getting more books in the world of Secret McQueen! (There are also more Misfits and Mayhem novellas in the works. Squee!) I always thought that Secret's werewolf family, the Southeast pack lead by her Uncle Callum, was so interesting. Her little sister Genie played a small role in helping to stop the zombies taking over New York in A Secret to Die For and now she's starring in her own series.

Twenty-one year old Genie is a student at Tulane living in New Orleans with her human law student boyfriend. She's frequently been pursued by reporters who want to interview the "werewolf princess" since the events in the last Secret book outed the supernaturals. Fearing her high profile will make her a target when The Church of Morning threatens the pack, Uncle Callum calls her home. On the way there, she's run off the road by a church fanatic. She calls the only tow truck in town and finds herself stuck with Wilder Shaw.

I really like Wilder. He's confident and flirtatious, but he's not over the top Alpha. I also like the fact that he has a history with Genie's twin brother Ben and I'm curious about how that, along with something that happens at the end of the book, will affect the siblings' relationship in the future.

I had some reservations, however, about the anti-supe church. I felt like it's been done before. The Church of Morning even sounds a little bit like The Fellowship of the Sun. Despite that, Sierra Dean twisted the familiar plot in a whole new way.

What I really enjoyed about this book is that it feels like a werewolf story. Even though Genie is also half witch and has magic abilities, the plot really revolves around the wolves. It has elements of pack politics as well as Genie growing into her position and learning how to be an Alpha. I feel like I really don't read many true werewolf stories. They're usually mixed in with the vampires and the other supes. So I loved that about Bayou Blues.

I also love the NOLA setting, even though that's also been done before. But again, it's something I mostly associate with vampires rather than werewolves. I'm excited to see how Dean develops Genie's version of the city in the series.

This book does have some small spoilers for the end of the Secret McQueen series, but it's nothing that would keep you from enjoying the last two books if you haven't read them yet. And if you have read A Secret to Die For, you know something Genie doesn't about the secondary plot that continues into the next book.

I feel like this series is off to a solid start and I'm really looking forward to the rest of Genie's story.

Recommended for fans of: The Secret McQueen series, werewolves and hunky mechanics

ARC provided by the author

    

4  stars