Book Review: “Stalking the Others” by Jess Haines

“Hours had passed since I’d fled Alec Royce’s apartment building with nothing but murder on my mind.”

The fourth installment in the H & W Investigations novels by Jess Haines, titled Stalking the Others, has quite a dark flavor to it compared to the first three stories. When we left our heroine, Shiarra Waynest, four hours earlier, she had been scratched and possibly contaminated by a werewolf, rejected by her parents and cheated on by her boyfriend, whom she was just about to hand over her life to. Shia is pissed, to say the least. Did I mention that she was also on the run from police and media? Things can’t get any worse for Ms. Waynest and I really couldn’t blame her for wanting to kill something.

In Stalking the Others Shia is on the hunt for the wolf who infected her as well as her cheating BF, Chaz, who I loathe, hate and abominate. I couldn’t wait until she caught up with him and gave him the pounding he deserved, aided by her enchanted belt which houses the spirit of a very strong Other.

This belt was given to her back in [easyazon-link asin=”B003CNQ4H0″]Hunted By The Others[/easyazon-link] and every time Shiarra puts it on she has heightened abilities that last throughout the night until daybreak. In this book we learn a lot more about the belt and you will be surprised at its history.

In Stalking the Others Shiarra is counting down the days until the full moon, when she will finally discover if her contamination will turn her into a werewolf. She’ll use her time to hunt down the wolf who scratched her and basically changed her life forever. Whether or not Shia turns werewolf (I’m not telling!), in her fury and hurt she will leave a lot of mistakes in her wake that she may or may not come to regret.

This book goes even darker than its predecessors. Since we are inside Shia’s head the entire time, we are privy to her every thought and emotion. There’s disturbing news about Jack, the leader of the White Hat faction living in the area, Chaz’s girlfriend (ugh!) gives problems as she tries to hide the location of the coward (can you tell how I feel about him yet?), and Shiarra’s own concerns for her closest friend and business partner, Sara.

Once again, I couldn’t put this book down once I started it. It never lags and flows so smoothly that when you come to the last page, you can’t believe it finished already. Actually, when you come to the last page of this particular book, you may sit as I did: in a fog, dazed and breathless, and oh so very  happy.

Stalking the Others hits book stores July 3, and if you haven’t yet read the first three books I encourage you to do so now. Read my reviews on Hunted By the Others, Taken By the Others and Deceived By the Others, and then get to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or whatever is closest to you, and pick them up. Jess Haines encourages you to patronize your local bookstores and keep them in business.

You can read more about Jess at her official website, jesshaines.com, follow her on Twitter (@Jess_Haines) and Facebook, and look forward to two more books in this series.