If the murderer you’re tracking is a vampire, then you want a vampire detective.Just maybe not this one.It’s not that Jack Valentine is bad at her job. The youngest member of Oxford’s Seekers has an impressive track record, but she also has an impressive grudge against the local baron, Killian Drake.When a human turns up dead on May Morning, she’s determined to pin the murder on Drake. The … murder on Drake. The problem is that none of the evidence points to him. Instead, it leads Jack into a web of conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the country, people to whom Jack has no access. But she knows someone who does.
To get to the truth, Jack will have to partner up with her worst enemy. As long as she can keep her cool, Drake will point her to the ringleaders, she’ll find the murderer and no one else will have to die.
Body bags on standby.
May Day is the first book in Josie Jaffrey’s Seekers series, an urban fantasy series set in Oxford, England.
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Crime thrillers, mysteries, procedurals – I love them. I’m also a big fan of vampire stories, so when Josie Jaffrey gave me a vampire detective, it was right up my alley. It’s no surprise that Jack is a strong woman. She is a vampire. But she’s also a strong character, and the more I read of her, the more I liked her. Jaffrey has a terrific writing style, and I really liked that I got to solve the mystery right along with Jack. It kept things fresh and exciting all the way through. As this is urban fantasy, we can’t fail to mention world-building, which is where a lot of books in the genre start to lose me. I realize it’s a fantasy world, but things need to follow the author’s rules for her world and stick to those rules. In other words, no changing it up just because you’ve painted yourself into a corner. I also prefer that the world-building be done organically throughout the story rather than big chunks of info dumped on me. The world-building here is everything I could ask for, and it’s an intriguing world that I definitely want more of.
*this book was kindly sent to me by the author (Josie Jaffrey) in exchange for an honest review*
NOTE: my review of “Killian’s Dead (Seekers 0.5)” is already available on Goodreads.
May Day is the first book in the Seekers series and is set some time after the events of Killian’s Dead.
Our main character Jack Valentine is the youngest member of The Seekers, a group who investigates situations where vampires (The Silvers) risk being exposed to humans. Jack finds herself in the heart of a conspiracy when a dead body is dropped – yes, you read that right: DROPPED – from the heights of a school. Jack already has a suspect in mind but she soon realizes nothing is as it seems and even though she’s a relatively new member of the Silver community, that doesn’t mean she’s going to sit back while there’s a huge risk the Silver being exposed.
As you might know from my review of the prequel Killian’s Dead, I love Jack. She’s one of my favorite main characters ever and I love the fact that we get to see her in action in this book and also the fact that it is all told from her perspective.
We have a love triangle here with one of the relationships being a love/hate relationship, which I enjoyed so much.
Even though some parts of the story are slow paced, May Day is a page turner, just like every other book I read by Josie. It’s full of twists and turns, vampires, crime, dark humor and detective work. A mix between vampires and CSI. Also, if you read The Gilded King, you might recognize a certain someone in this book and your heart will smile when you find out who I’m talking about.
One last thing I’d like to mention is that the author has added a contents warning page on the back of the book and we ABSOLUTELY STAN Josie Jaffrey.
‘I’m smarter than that. So why are you back here, haunting my doorstep?’
‘Because one day, I’m going to take you down,’ I say. ‘Youre careful, but you’re not perfect. I’ll pin something on you eventually. I’m in no rush.’
‘You know, there’s a thin line between vendetta and obsession. The longer you walk it, the more likely it becomes that you’ll end up crossing it, one way or another. So which side are you on?’
‘In our long lives we become chimeras several thousand times over, comprised of little pieces of everyone whose blood we have ever drunk. We are a patchwork of DNA.’
Josie Jaffrey is liable to amass a devoted readership, an author sure to compel an avalanche of bellowing supporters. This is an author who cleanly and artfully typifies Indie literature as a design to never trivialise. May Day is a burnished model of the self-publishing hustle.
Plucky, irascible Jack Valentine is the barefaced and brazen lead protagonist in Josie Jaffrey’s first-in-series, May Day. An emotionally-driven dissident to the disciplinarian, she charges hastily at provocation, resistance emancipates her fortitude and she’s as duly unrefined as a dusky rock content to be in the rough. A laid-back attitude may write her off as just another insubordinate with the temper to match, but her stats are stellar, they speak for themselves, and if anyone has the projectile to challenge a tempest, It’s this impulsive Seeker who has just found herself at the heart of winding conspiracy.
When a dead human is gracelessly dropped from the the heights of Magdalen College School, Jack and her fellow cohorts are there to witness the murder and are first-on-scene to investigate. A grisly slew of public murders pose a head-turning threat and this latest one is no exception. But what worries the vampire community (known as the Silver) is the potential risk to the preservation of Silver life. Exposing and bleeding into the human spotlight could unmask the Silver after a perennial history of covert co-existence.
The Seekers exist to safeguard their time-hallowed and immortal race, and a Seeker though Jack is, she’s not at all in the business of making a sizeable impression on her superiors (at least not a good one). With The Solis Invicti – their sovereign’s established guard – now in immediate partnership with Jack and her division, she’s not about to change up tactics. Her friends and Seeker comrades may have a fine-tuned attention for authority, but her marginal regard for supremacy and its influential gravitas does not go by undisguised. In fact, a new murder you say? If you’ve taken a read of the prequel novella to this series, Killian’s Dead, well, you know who’s fits the bill as a ripe target for Jack…
Armed with venom, a super-sized grudge and an itch to lick her wounds, Jack has pointed all the pincers of her enmity towards one of Oxford’s elite, it’s very Baron. He’s also secured her unending bitterness. She has her own ideas of righteous justice to humour, and if this bizarre investigation enables a personal hunt, let’s just say Killian Drake’s blood comes second to her favourite drink of choice. Just call her a starved Silver, a bloodhound eager to taste the fragrance of his undoing. Because Jack had plastered a price on his head two decades prior and she’s thirsty to lay a claim.
But as her flaws compromise her clarity and the height of this labyrinthine case only becomes leaps more confusing and bounds more threatening, Jack is forced to leaven her hackles for an entirely different reason altogether. And no, he’s not tall, dashingly provocative and imperious. As she did 20 years earlier, Jack is reminded of how wide the powers that be can penetrate, how the powers that be might be the powers at play.
Allying with Drake is about as fun as placing faith in a hornet’s nest, but Jack might have to swap out bad blood for the Baron’s support, and if he’s to possibly endanger his good faith among the Silver, she’ll have to lay down her Drake-whittled acrimony. Doesn’t mean she has to like it, but chipping away at her own credibility isn’t doing her any favours. But as the riddle intensifies, so does the relish of a ill-fitting love triangle.
Josie Jaffrey has quickly secured my busybody curiosity and upbeat dependability with May Day. If reading this is anything to go by, which it is, then I can easily call myself a decided admirer of her work after just a one-time read. It’s a hallmark of a great story when you’re inspired enough to pace restlessly for a following installment, not ready to close the cover just yet. So impatient that I sent and a request for the next-in-series. I’m beyond the typical margin of excitement and only making a start on Judgment Day will pacify the craving.
Set in Oxford, England, a dwelling for an imperishable race, Jaffrey envisions an atmospheric but deeply down-to-earth chronicle of investigative justice, patriarchal immortality and mystery-condensed guesswork, a whodunnit edged with warped deviance, disturbing perversion and a hapless, hot-blooded love triangle. The layered investigate mystery and the romance itself were both shining parts of this story for me.
Vampire lore isn’t saturated with the heft of its perpetuated stereotype and this isn’t your carbon copy model that sports the same collective vamp quirks. Jaffrey almost bars little difference in human and inhuman behaviour, a deeply human component paints the Silvers and humans as jarringly alike. Sordid sin eludes no race. The author almost strips the unparalleled sense of dominion from the supernova species by placing them on a level plane while simultaneously imbuing them with leverage and cloaked power.
Ironically, the Silver aren’t detectable sore thumbs in an isolated syndicate. They blend, they acclimate and they fit fairly neatly within society. I get the picture that Jaffrey doesn’t strictly invest in the framework of the extraordinary prodigy fated for the phenomenal. Rather, Jack is the unromantic hard-head, inconspicuous by name of the Seeker rank. Thrust into Silver life wasn’t planned and she’s not the exceptional ‘one’ favoured for genius.
She’s driven to call out misdeed and monstrosity. She’s unvarnished. She’s raw. Your average person faced with a situation she can’t ignore. That’s what makes her a rather important lead for this story. That and her unrepressed compulsion. The fear won’t stymie her, her emotional whims conductive to Jack-specific handiwork. An interesting mix of careless and caring. May Day is almost as terrestrial as the day-to-day, spiced with paranormal and grotesque elements. I could easily imagine this story as a real-world script, vampires included!
I’m always up for the off-beat kindling of a good love triangle and you’d be charmed to find an attractive one in May Day. You’ve got the impish, sweetened pathologist, Dr. Tabitha Ross. A trouble-free, incentivising fragrance that gives Jack pipe-dream hopes. A light beam nestled in this grim mystery. Then there’s the complete antithesis. The sumptuous, charismatic and irksome Killian Drake. Their chemistry is combustible and ferocious, quick to flame and nettle. He might be her personal irritant but he inflames her hypersensitive Silver senses like the darkest variety of molten ore.
The romance excites and inspires! I love the diverse option to integrate both a male and a female love interest. With Jack as a bisexual leading protagonist who engages in same-sex relationships, I can’t liken this to any other fantasy if I’m recalling correctly. I didn’t know if this triangle of love would excite, but gosh am I provoked enough to find out. The meet-cute versus the love-hate, and I think I know who I’m rooting for with an irresistible itch…and because I’m weak in the knees for the edgier, rockier enemies-to-lovers dynamic, Drake is MY silver of choice. Jack’s veins might be burning up with straightlaced antagonism for him, but mine are frayed with a different kind of passion.
Jack’s cannon-balling stubbornness makes for a great investigator but not a good subordinate. It doesn’t take long for her to accumulate a spate of her own suspicions. Profiling a saboteur and probing the life of a profoundly unsavoury man opens the box that was once dubbed Pandora’s. The truth comes at a healthy price, the price of digging, and though Jack doesn’t have the idle brawn to sit back, she’s not immune to the fear of it. She doesn’t ascribe to blind faith or devout rule, and those just might be her best assets yet.
May Day is an absorbing series starter by Josie Jaffrey. Jaffrey’s urban fantasy is an original and smart first-in-series that crosses a medley of pick-and-mix. A hybrid, intercrossed blend up of a investigative procedural, crime murder mystery, modern urban fantasy and paranormal mystique with vampire mythos that feeds into a complex, duly interesting and almost macabre existence. Jack is nothing if not a hellcat in the face of the time-honoured, prevailing patriarchy. If you like your reads with an interesting slew of characters, compelling groundwork, incriminating intrigue with an operative fit to smite the status quo, this is for you.
It’s true that when glass shatters, the pieces can be too numerous to assemble. Darkness sows the arcane and the cryptic. It can also hide a bounty of secrets as much as pretense can cover a myriad of sins. So when the deeply distasteful crawls out of the Silver woodwork, Jack is not content to let sleeping Silver, nor is she partial to let blood fill the cracks lest it drip from the most worthy. But amid it all, to choose between an artful nightmare or painless daydream makes me a fourth wheel desperate to see this triangle play out. A highly recommendable read!
A big thank you to the author for offering me a copy of May Day in exchange for an honest review!
Josie Jaffery’s May Day (Seekers #1)
(I received an arc copy of this book in exchange for a unbiased, true review. All ideas and opinions are my own.)
4.8/5 stars
I love this book. I mean, if you mix vampires, romance, and a murder together in a book, count me in. I really can’t get enough of this book. It is just way too good. I would love to say a great big thank you to Josie Jeffery for sending me the book and Victoria Eaton for emailing me with this great opportunity.
Jack is the youngest seeker, but she is good at her job. However, when a case comes up that leads her down a trail of conspiracy, she doesn’t know what to do. Not only that, her heart and brain and tearing in to different directions, and people. “Body bags on standby”
Character Development: 5 stars
Story Line: 5 stars.
Readability: 4.5 stars.
Writing style: 4.5 stars.
My enjoyment: 5 stars.
Average Star Score: 4.8 stars.
Things I Liked
I love vampire, adore them. I really can’t get enough of them. The silvers(vampires) were so interesting. I have never read any book with vampires like this.
The inner conflict in Jack about who she loves is just amazing.
I love the enemies to lovers troupe, and this just hits on it and it makes my poor heart happy.
It felt like a mix of YA and New adult, but it was so masterfully done.
The side characters were well developed.
Things I Did Not Like
I really wish I could have gotten to see more of Jack and Killian. (Maybe the second book. Hopefully)
I wish that Black Mary was explained a little more.
All in all, this is a great book. It was almost impossible for me to put down. It was one of those books that I hated finishing because I didn’t want it to end. I rarely feel this with book. The only other times I felt like that were with the Twilight Series, Harry Potter, and Looking for Alaska. I would definitely say that this book is one of my all time favorites.
First of all, I would like to thank Josie again for giving me this copy of her book!
Jack Valentine is a member of the Seekers (kind of a Vampire CSI) and has to investigate a homicide, which is apparently caused by a Silver. And Jack is “dead” to prove that it was Killian Drake (his archenemy already known from the prequel Killian’s Dead) who was responsible for the murder of David Grant. But everything points to Killian’s innocence (at least in this case) and Jack is forced to cooperate with the Baron of Oxford in order to be able to follow the clues that her case leads to.
If I had been half reluctant with Jack Valentine in Killian’s Dead, this book took away all my doubts that this character has huge potential!
Because of that prequel, I entered with uncertainty on May Day and I confess that it was the presence of Cam (the character is already known, at least, from the Sovereign series that I read and reviewed: The Gilded King, The Silver Queen and The Blood Prince) that it got me excited about this book in the first 100 pages, but after that typical period of getting to know the main character and when Jack begins to make bold decisions and that makes her grow so much as a character. There was a bold choice that completely set a “mark” in this story and transformed it!
About 20 years have passed since the prequel to the beginning of the book, but it is in the interval from the beginning of the book to the end, which doesn’t even last half a year, that Jack’s growth is notorious.
About the solving of the mystery of David Grant, I think it was a bit slow at first, but I really loved how it turned out.
And the ship? I live for love-hate novels! I live from that kind of romance!
Buuut, I don’t know which ship I should carve in a tree with a heart: J+T or J+K … Have I even said that I love stories with love triangles too? hahah
Have you read this book? If not, are you curious? 🙂 (and if you want to read it make sure you read the content warnings first!)
Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely mine.
I have received this book for free from the author. My opinion remains my own.
This book is absolutely incredible! It mixes homocide detectives on a murder case with the supernatural world of vampires. Seriously, if you like police series on TV and you like vampires/supernatural stuff in an urban fantasy setting, this is the book for you.
I have a thing for vampires, I am not going to lie about that. But mostly I like the stories where the vampires are more than just bloodsucking monsters; the stories with extensive lore around the vampires, lore that makes sense; the stories where they can do more than live forever and suck blood. I am so happy to have found the SILVERVERSE, the universe all of Josie Jaffrey’s vampire books take place in, just in different periods of time, as they are exactly that. I previously read Josie Jaffrey’s SOVEREIGN series, a more of a post-apocalypse, the-world-has-gone-to-shit kind or setting and I loved every bit of it. Now, I started the SEEKERS series, which is pretty much normal modern times and humans are still unaware of the existence of the Silver (that’s how the vampires are called). It’s a whole different setting, but it kept the same lore integrity and vibe as SOVEREIGN and it felt like coming back to a familiar place.
Talking about the SOVEREIGN series, one of the main characters of that series is also a main character in this one! I really love Cameron, he has a piece of my heart ever since I read THE BLOOD PRINCE. He is a gay man and I love how Josie writes her queer characters: their sexuality is just their sexuality; it’s part of their identity, but not a personality trait. This brings me to more LGBTQ+ representation: the main character, Jack Valentine, is a bisexual woman and she is now one of my favourite disaster bis! As a bisexual person myself, I really enjoyed reading about her and her lovelife. Though we are completely different people, I still related so much to her. As for other representation: there is also a sapphic romance and a sapphic side character, Cameron is clearly on the look for a date and just so much more. This is yet again a universe where someone is basically queer unless stated otherwise and I LOVE IT.
Even though this book (and series) is in the same universe as seven other novels, it’s still it’s own thing. You can start your journey into the SILVERVERSE right here, with this book, as everything you need to know about the Silver to understand the book is right there on page with quick and easy explanations. They work as explanations for new readers, but they’re also great to fresh up your memory if you are a SILVERVERSE veteran.
Last, but not least, let’s talk about the writing. There is something about Josie’s writing alone that makes her one of my favourite authors. On top of that, she writes amazing plots. She doesn’t write with super creative descriptions or in an almost poetic way, but *she just writes*. She writes what is needed to enhance the story and not trying to overdo it. I love the simplicity of it, it’s no more extra than it needs to be and that’s impressive. There aren’t many authors that can pull that off and Josie can.
I highly recommend this book; it’s a super strong book with an amazing plot and lots of queer representation. I am looking forward to book two, as this series is really promising! Josie mentioned she is currently working on it and as she writes and publishes relatively fast, I am positive I will have book two in my hands sooner rather than later. Nonetheless, it’s definitely worth waiting for.
Murder, Mystery and Vampires… Um, hell yeah! That’s exactly what I signed up for and that’s what I got!
Not only is Josie Jaffrey is a new-to-me author but venturing into a series that is not centred around the Romance genre was a new experience as well and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Two worlds existing parallel to each other, the vampires have lived amidst the humans for centuries, the latter, barring a few of the elites, completely unaware of the supernatural creatures and their world of rules and regulations. The vampires live in a hierarchy and social scale every vampire has a role to play.
Since this is a mystery, I don’t want to go into the plot and reveal something, that might seem insignificant to me. However, and I need to point this out, Ms Jaffrey has created an amazing plot with a very diverse set of characters. If a character is black, you know they are black and if a character is bisexual (Jack) or homosexual (Cam) you are aware of that from the moment they are introduced to the reader. There is no glossing over or a one-time mention in the middle of nowhere, only for the reader to not remember what is important to the characters and the image that is formed.
The writing is descriptive and the story is fast-paced, not allowing the reader to drop the book mid-sentence or end of a chapter as there is quite a lot of things happening.
Not one chapter felt like a filler or a scene felt out of place. Every single scene tied together so well, allowing me to follow the story the way it was intended to as opposed to me scrambling back and forth like a headless chicken trying to make sense of the things that were playing out. Every character, main and side, had a role to play and they all played it well.
The plot is an engaging mix of mystery peppered with romantic drama (a personal favourite) creating quite the tension between Jack and her two potential love interests — Baron Killian Drake and Dr Tabitha Ross.
Ms Jaffrey, while taking the reader on a murder mystery soling spree, left quite a few open plots that instead of leaving me unsatisfied (like they usually do) made me curious and left me wanting to know how it will be dealt with in the next book! (So so so freaking excited for that one!!)
Ending the story on a cliffhanger has let me wanting — wanting to know what is going to happen and how my favourite ever-rebellious vampire Jack Valentine face the upcoming challenges!
PS. I’m shipping Jack and Killian SO FREAKING HARD because, and I honestly have one word or it — C.H.E.M.I.S.T.R.Y!!!!!
4.5
Book source ~ Tour
Jacquelyn ”Jack” Valentine was 18 when she was turned into a vampire. Or Silver as they are called here. For 20 years she’s been working as a Seeker in Oxford. Seekers are part of the Silver police force and their job is to keep other Silver from bringing attention to their community. Humans are not supposed to know about Silver. Period. When a human is killed by a Silver in a very public manner (and not the first in a series of murders) the Oxford Seekers are on it. Then the London higher ups come to town and take over because they believe the murder is tied to their cases from London. Or is it? There is some shady shit going on and Jack’s team is stuck stepping in it.
Vampire detective isn’t a new thing, but who says it has to be new to be good? Jack is a great character. Brilliant at ferreting out clues and putting them together, but totally self-destructive personally. What a mess she is. And her hatred for the Oxford Baron, Killian Drake, is single-minded to the point of career suicide. Killian is a great villain, if you want to call him that. I’m not really sure at this point if he’s on anyone’s side except his own long-lived self. He’s fascinating and irritating.
There is some serious underhanded crap going on. There’s intrigue and mystery galore. There’s the whole who-can-you-trust paranoia. There’s also a murder to solve. And the icing on the cake is the personal life of Jack and how she just careens through her days and nights doing her job and making a mess of her personal life. She’s like a train wreck you can’t look away from and it’s glorious. I mean, a train wreck isn’t glorious. It’s just that Jack is a hot mess. Hell, you know what I mean. Anyway, to top it all off with a giant cherry is that ending. Holy shit. I can’t wait to grab book 2 when it comes out.
I enjoyed this one. It had a strong cast of characters and an intriguing setup courtesy of the 0.5 book in the series, the short story Killian’s Dead. I enjoyed the world building and the storyline was interesting – albeit a little slow-going after a while. I kept feeling like something should be happening, and then teaser-bits of action and drama would be worked in and I’d be delighted again, then the story would slow back down… I was set on a solid 3-star review as a result – it’s a fun read, but wasn’t paced the way it felt like it should be. Then things swung into action in the bitter end and the way things wrapped up (well, sort of wrapped up – mostly the way they were layered for future action) really drew me back in and ramped the review back up to 4 stars. I’m hoping the slow bits were due to scene-setting in preparation for future adventures – because there’s a LOT of excellent stuff that happened in the end of this one and it really made me want to continue reading about the continuing adventures of Jack and Killian et. al!
I received an obligation-free complimentary review copy courtesy of StoryOrigin.