Shadows of Salem Series, Book 2 Shadow Marked / Rebecca Hamilton & Jasmine Walt / 221 pages

Shadow Marked is a continuation of The Shadows of Salem series. Detective Brooke Chandler was deliberately being shielded from the supernatural world growing up now  she is just starting to learn about the supernatural realm that no one knows exists right under their noses. As if vampires weren’t enough, now Brooke has to deal with the witch covens, ghost haunts, and Fae lords.  After the death of Father James and her fiance, Tom, Brooke Chandler becomes filled with guilt. Her partner, Detective Baxter, was supposedly the brother of Father James when actually it was a ruse, fictitious memories planted by Father James to aid his wrong doings as an evil warlock who was after her magical energy, and was kidnapping and siphoning the magic energy of dozens of other supernatural creatures. It doesn’t change the fact that she had to kill Father James in self-defense or how detective Baxter felt about his ‘brother’ not knowing the crimes he committed. But the hurt in his eyes alone, as he tries endlessly to find evidence that just isn’t there…it eats away at her conscience. With the help the Fae lord, Maddock, Brooke is beginning to understand her powers and use them, the training that has long since been denied to her by her Uncle Oscar as a way of protection after her parents were murdered. Maddock gives her little quests on occasion to find four powerful artifacts, but she doesn’t quite understand what his intentions are for them yet, and with the uninvited Unseelie Fae guest visiting her apartment, requesting that Brooke now repay her debt by providing the artifacts to her instead, Brooke doesn’t know what to do.  If that is not enough, the local coven, her mother had run from, has set to blackmailing her to join their coven under pretense of outing her deep dark secret to the world about what really happened to her fiance and Father James on the night of their death. Can she keep her secrets and appease all parties that want something from her, or will the end come quickly? Narrated by Angela Dawe 5h 40 min.