There are three kinds of lies. Lies the fates spin as half truths. Lies of destined love. And statistics. As a fateless, Kate Hale is immune to the first two, but the third kind of lie is her profession. After spending years as an actuary for the Traffic Department, Kate is promoted to Accidental Death Predictions. It’s all she’s worked toward, and her career is finally on track. But when an … track. But when an oracle delivers an impossible death prediction and insists on her help to solve the case, she might lose any chance of impressing the brass.
Her only hope comes in the form of the police liaison assigned to her department, latent werewolf Ian Becker. Becker can grant her the clearance to find answers, but he’s a wild card with a shady past who doesn’t play well with others.
Every prediction has a loophole, but if Kate can’t solve the case before the crime is fated to occur she won’t just lose her job-she’ll have the blood of an oracle on her hands.
Romancing the Null is the first book in an exciting new urban fantasy romance series. Fans of Mercy Thompson or The Dresden Files will likely enjoy this series.
The Outlier Prophecy Series:
Romancing the Null (book one)
Conditional Probability of Attraction (book two) ~ Out Now!
The Relationship Coefficient (book three) ~ coming in May 2016
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Good story with the best part, at least for me, being the characters and the dynamics between them. While the story was good and the plotline interesting, I struggled with all the statistical/prediction dialog and about at the 70% mark started skimming a little through those parts. At this point, I was thinking the book was a solid 3star rating and not a whole lot of interest in continuing the series, until the last chapter.
It was at this point that my interest perked up with a “WHOA” didn’t see that happening. I like it when a story does that to me. It wasn’t until the last couple of pages that had me going “ok, that was interesting” with the last page having the customary cliffhanger – one that has me wanting to read the next book just to find out what happened, especially since the next book is on Becker.
Of all the books characters, Becker is, by far, the most interesting one. This will definitely have me reading, at least, the next book in the series. Hence, the 4star rating.
This was a great story. Author did a great job. She kept my attention throughout the story. Her writing was excellent. The story itself was engaging. It was nice not having steamy graphic sex to distract from the great story line. Sexual tension between the two main characters added interest. It was really nice that they didn’t jump into bed and rip each other’s clothes off. The dynamic between the government departments as well as the backbiting scrambling to the top from Kate’s ex made Kate a sympathetic character. Characters that learn from past experiences are very refreshing. I look forward to the rest of the series. Too bad they aren’t on iBook.
I enjoyed this one. It was a lot less romance and more action than the title implies. The main guy seemed like he might be a dud at first, but he quickly came into his own after an intro that made him seem like a less-than-interesting-ladder-climber. Good character growth, intriguing mystery to be solved, and good world building without overdoing it.
I enjoyed reading this book and left wanting to see the lead characters grow together personally and professionally. Interesting concept, plot and characters.
Loved the series….great characters. Once I picked the book up to read I couldn’t put it down.
The premise is that this is a society where the government has predictions on pretty much everything and everyone. And the government pretty much always acts on these predictions. But life just continues pretty much as it does now, and the only people who think this might produce problems are crazy nut jobs. Oh, and this is set in _California_, a state that it seems to me would be completely empty if the government gave weight to predictions about drought, earthquakes, fires, mudslides, and the many, many other natural disasters native to that state.
It’s like Dick’s Minority Report on an even more massive scale, but written without raising any moral questions or really thinking about how very different and hugely problematic that world would be. It completely ignores the question of how important it is to learn from pain or even tragedy, and the moral questions that arise when you go after someone for what they’re likely to do in the future but haven’t done yet.
Oh, and only a minority are purely human. Most people have some fantastic creature in their heritage. But of course only ones from European myths. But again, not much difference in their society. As far as I can tell, the only major difference is that they mostly use electric and biofuel cars.
None of which is awful, but it’s not good either.
For me, what then takes it from a 3 to a 1 is that the main characters are terribly boring. The interesting ones are all bit characters with disappointingly little to say or do. In fact, they’re oddly passive and silent for people with their own goals and aims, especially considering most of them are actually in danger of being killed. The main protagonist’s final actions, which work out and solve the case, really didn’t make any sense.
But most of all, it doesn’t even have internal logic. The supposedly statistics driven main character consistently does things that are either unnecessarily stupid or have nothing to do with her job and abilities. She makes coffee when she knows that’s one of the trigger conditions of the event they’re trying to avoid. She just about every major step forward is due to her her “gut feelings,” despite being described as analytical.
I just couldn’t enjoy this book. I found it impossible to fall into a world that was so superficially designed, impossible to relate to such boring and one-dimensional main characters, and impossible to find any satisfaction in a plot so illogical and poorly structured.