[REVIEW] Hallowed Circle by Linda Robertson

Title: Hallowed Circle
Author: Linda Robertson
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Persephone Alcmedi #2

Mass Market Paper, 384 pages 

Publication:  December 29th 2009 by Pocket 

Buy the book
|AMAZON|BOOK DEPO| 

Source: Publisher 

|SUMMARY| 

And you think beauty pageants are scary?
 
Persephone Alcmedi has been persuaded to compete for the position of High Priestess of the Cleveland, Ohio, coven — now that the former priestess, Vivian Diamond, has strangely gone missing. Unfortunately, there are a few small problems with the idea. Not only does Seph know rather more about Vivian's disappearance than the other witches realize, but the epic struggle she's just survived has left her with some highly unusual powers — ones that could be dangerous to reveal. Despite her reluctance, she agrees to participate, if only to prevent snooty Hunter Hopewell, an obnoxious but talented witch, from ending up in the winner's circle. Can Seph hide her secrets — including her connection to the master vampire-wizard Menessos — from the terrifyingly wise judges? Plus, there's her rock 'n' roll werewolf boyfriend, Johnny, and some angry fairies to deal with....
Once the competition begins, a finalist turns up dead. It looks as if one of the contestants is willing to do anything — including murder — to win. Suddenly Seph has even more on her plate than she thought: from solving a murder to working out what her new powers really are...and exactly why they're creating so much havoc in her love life. 

|REVIEW|
Hallowed Circle, the second book in the Persephone Alcmedi series takes place approximately three weeks after Vicious Circle. Seph is trying to balance her life and time between her Wærewolf column, taking care of Nana and her foster daughter Beverly, figuring out her feelings for Wærewolf Johnny, and coming to term with her Lustrata destiny. To add to her ever burdening shoulders, Seph finds out that she was nominated to be a candidate to be high priestess, with Vivan Diamond ‘’missing’’ supposedly running off because she couldn’t handle being Beverly’s guardian.  

This was another solid addition to the Persephone Alcmedi series; I really enjoyed the world and characters that Mrs. Robertson created. With only three weeks separating the events between books, readers can see the characters grow and accept the roles they were given (certain facts about the Lustrata are revealed and the roles that people play regarding the Lustrata).  In the first book Robertson introduced us to witches, Wærewolves, and vampires, and in the second installment readers get to meet some vengeful and scary fairies out to harm Menessos and Seph. The beginning of the book was a bit slow, as Seph goes through the regular motion of her everyday life, the story didn’t get interesting till the high priestess competition. There was a small twist regarding the task given to the candidates and the one murdering the competitors….totally didn’t see that coming and was a fun scene in all the seriousness that was the Eximium.

While not a lot happened, the ending builds a bridge for the coming events in book 3, Fatal Circle. I look forward to seeing how Seph and the other witches handle the upcoming battle between the fairies.