Set in the Regent’s Park pack worldClapham Common—a new pack with their own set of problems… Shifter Aaron Harper gets drawn into illegal underground fighting to keep an eye on his best friend. The thrill of the fight keeps him coming back for more, but discovery could mean imprisonment and banishment from their pack. Without a beta to watch over them, common sense takes a back seat.Michael … seat.
Michael Archer of the Shifter Crimes Task Force is investigating recent murders. Despite the brutal cause of death pointing to the work of a shifter’s claws, instinct tells him a well-known nightclub owner is involved, but they have no proof.
Aaron and Michael’s paths cross after another body with the same injuries is discovered. With Aaron finding himself on the wrong side of the SCTF and Michael looking for a killer, any attraction between them is both ill-advised and unlikely. But fate has other ideas.
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Original review: https://myshelfbooks.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/butterfly-assassin-annabelle-jacobs/
Annabelle Jacobs was a new author for me. She wasn’t in my radar and this book was pretty low on my TBR list. But this year I am following an ABC Challenge for Romance Books in a community for readers and when I had to pick the B letter this one was the first that caught my eye. So, by pure accident, I have found an unexpecred awesome book. It’s a standalone book, but it takes place in the same universe as her Regent’s Park Pack saga. I haven’t read those and I can promise there is no need of reading them to understand Butterfly Assassin.
We follow the story of Aaron, a shifter who has been hooked to the adrenaline rush of illegal fights. For a shifter they are even more illegal, so he has to hide his true nature and bleed as any human. Michael is a Detective for the SCTF, a police force specialized in dealing with shifters. When several humans connected to the mastermind of the illegal fights appear dead at the hands of a shifter, the path of both characters collide in more than one way…
If you are expecting a lot of romance and hot sex every other chapter (when there is a shifter in this genre, they tend to have an insatiable hunger for sex), you are not going to like the book. My greatest surprise with this book is that the author drags masterfully the dance of unexpected attraction between hugely different characters. The “no-so-subtle-check-out”, the “looks-that-melt-steel”, the “uy-sorry-I-didn’t-mean-to-touch-you” and much more slow burners that keep the readers on their toes cheering for a happy ending. No rush, more fun. Their exchanges made me smile every time and I hated when they were appart.
Besides, this is no the classic romance with a shifter and the dreadful fated mate. I’m so glad that the author has dropped that annoying cliché of the genre. Instead, she presents us with the concept of bonding and greater emotions for the werewolves. The fact that Aaron feels the connection with Michael in a higher emotional level doesn’t make him a possessive grunt. He expresses honestly his need of claiming the detective as his, but he is very tactful to avoid any kind of hurtful comment or action. He is so attentive, easy-going and fun. MIchael is one of the lucky ones!!
That slow cooked meal was being served little by little as the main plot of the story develops: the killings of humans at the hand of a shifter. The mystery is more or less 85% of the book and it’s pretty well written in general. But there are several missteps or lost opportunities a long the way. For example, in the beginning of the book, the author falls in the trap to repeat herself too much. The same thing was told over and over again to different characters. The consequence is that the plot takes to much time to take off, but I would never say that is boring beacuse of that (the book is not boring at all). And there is another weird moment at the end of the book, when Blake and Aaron exchange some punches, that is missing something. Until that moment, Blake had no idea that one of the illegal fighters of his boos was a secret shifter. I was expecting a comment or something, but he doesn’t even blink…
This book has been much more than what I was expecting. It’s almost perfect. The Regent’s Park Pack saga is going to get a bump on my TBR list to see if I have found a new favourite author or if it was just this book.
Great action-filled story with mostly a lot of suspense and only a dash of romance.
Expertly written, and very exciting until the very end, with a surprising twist.
The romance, which I had expected to be at the heart of the story, at times felt a bit like an afterthought. That was a little disappointing, because I went into it with different expectations.
The MC’s, Aaron and Michael, are both wonderful and interesting characters with great chemistry and longing between them. I would have loved it if they had been able to spend more time together on page to get to know each other and fall in love. Now it felt a bit rushed.
It was a lot of fun, though, to revisit the shifter world that Annabelle Jacobs created with her Regent Park Pack series. We get introduced to a whole new cast of characters, paving the way for other great stories to come.
I do hope that the focus will shift again to the love story aspect, but that’s a matter of personal preference, of course.
Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Erica –
Annabelle Jacobs is a new-to-me author.
Butterfly Assassin has a dark and gritty vibe of a police procedural novel involving the mafia, with a side of shifter politics as the paranormal world-building. Aaron is a shifter fighter in an illegal bare-knuckle fighting ring, doing so to protect his gambler of a best buddy.
Michael is a detective trying to solve a string of shifter murders, which he assumes is done by ‘Mr. Smith,’ lord of the illegal underbelly.
Extremely fact-based, Butterfly Assassin is the epitome of a police procedural combined with Urban Fantasy. Without any humor, no spark of flirtation or romance, my mind played a trick on me by reading the narration in a flat, dry tone, which is completely on me.
The premise was plotted well, which is why I rated a book that wasn’t my cup of tea four stars. Tight and concise, the dark and gritty vibe was consistent from start to finish. While there was a thread of interest by the narrators, and they do eventually give into temptation, personally for me, I needed a bit more character and relationship development. I could buy there being attraction but absolutely nothing past a quick hookup to satisfy an urge, because there was no intimacy shown on page to solidify a partnership of any kind.
The sleuthing and mystery was so intense, any and all romance was buried deep, to the point I didn’t develop an emotional connection to the narrators. That was my issue in a nutshell. While well-written and developed plot-wise, the characters didn’t resonate with me because I couldn’t/didn’t connect with them emotionally, which had me losing interest in their journey. Not just on the romance front, but I never connected to either narrator.
I continued to the end to see how the murder plot was solved, having no hook with either Aaron or Michael or the side cast of characters.
While not to my tastes, I do recommend to readers looking for a serious take on a police procedural featuring Urban Fantasy elements.
Sarah –
I loved the world building in this book. Straddling the line between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, the author presents readers with a gritty and slightly dystopian version of London where humans and shifters live uneasily together.
The urban fantasy elements of the story add interest to a relatively simple police procedural. I enjoyed the conflict between the human police and the shifter packs, and the intricate pack hierarchies makes the investigation even more complicated.
But while I enjoyed the police hunt for a shifter serial killer, I didn’t fully engage with the romance between Michael and Aaron. I think my main problem is that there really isn’t any romance. The hook-up to happily ever after connection between these two offers a few hot scenes but bypasses the emotions, the friendship, and the building sexual tension that get me to invest in a romance. The happily ever after in this book is a paranormal romance construct that sits awkwardly on an otherwise gritty urban fantasy read. I like these characters and with proper development they could easily support a series. They didn’t need a happily ever after in this book.
I’d like to see more stories in this world. This book has great promise as the start of a series if it ditches the paranormal romance constructs and develops the gritty and non-conventional elements of this story.
Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Butterfly Assassin by Annabelle Jacobs to read and review.
Aaron Harper is a shifter, fighter. He’s fighting in the illegal underground fights to keep an eye on his friend, Harry. Right! Except Aaron kind of likes it. Michael Archer is trying to track down the shifter who has murdered 3 people, which leads him right to Aaron’s door. I’ve read A LOT of shifter stories, paranormal romance, and urban fantasy. I’ve never encountered a world quite like this. I was on the fence about this book until about halfway through and then it sucked me right in. The buildup between these two characters was a very slow burn, almost agonizing. All-in-all, I did end up loving this book and found it an amazing read. I do recommend giving this book a try!!