Stephanie Nelson's Craved

Nelson's Craved is a story of supernatural beings cohabiting in the small town of Flora, where someone has been killing witches for their blood.  Cool concept, right?  I think it's best if I review this novel with "glows" and "grows," since this is her first book and I am but a novice reviewer.

Glows:  I love the catchy names she has for the businesses in the town.  Gwen Sparks, our witchy heroine, owns a bookstore called "Broomsticks."  The local coffee shop is called "Espresso Self."  Her take on vampires becoming addicted to witches' blood, called brew (another catchy name), is interesting.  Overall, the plot is suspenseful and engaging.  The love scenes are steamy, and the characters are likable enough to keep interest.

Grows: Since Nelson created an entire city dedicated to supernaturals, there needs to be some back story on how this came to be.  She briefly mentions that the humans didn't want to live with them, and that leads me to believe that there are some segregation issues or past events that need to be explained.  Nelson develops Gwen's character nicely, but I feel like the other characters are superficial.  What made Aiden Blake fall in love with her so quickly?  Why does Fiona seem like such a ditz?

There were also some editing mistakes that drove me a little batty.  There was a discrepancy in how long Gwen had been out of the relationship with Micah. It doesn't have that great of an impact on the story, but still.  There was also some grammatical mistakes, but that could've been formatting issues.

I can see the direction that the next novel is taking, and it will be suspenseful and entertaining.  I do feel like there are some other plot lines that could be followed, especially if we get more back story on Flora.  I could see Ian endanger towns full of humans to get to Gwen- and then maybe humans and sups might have to overcome their differences and work together.

I did enjoy reading the book, and I will read the other Gwen Sparks installments.