Flash Point

Flash Point

by C.L. Schneider

5 out of 5

Synopsis
Slated for execution, shapeshifting assassin, Dahlia Nite, flees her world to hide in the human realm. As payment for the shelter they unknowingly provide, Dahlia dedicates herself to protecting humans from what truly lives in the shadows. Moving from town to town, she hunts the creatures that threaten an unsuspecting human race; burying the truth that could destroy them all.

But the shadows are shifting. The lies are adding up. And when Sentinel City is threatened by a series of bizarre brutal murders, light is shed on what should never be seen. The secrets that have kept humanity in the dark for centuries are in danger of being exposed.

Wrestling with a lifetime of her own deceptions, Dahlia investigates the killings while simultaneously working to conceal their circumstances. But with each new murder, the little bit of peace she has found in this world begins to crumble. Each new clue leads her to the one place she thought to never go again. Home.

Flash Point is the first book in The Nite Fire Series.



Review
After becoming an exile from her home world nearly a hundred years ago, Dahlia has become an expert at hiding her dragon side from humans. She works to keep humans peacefully ignorant from "supernatural" species, but may have met her match in a new case brought to her of a gruesome murder.

I received a free copy in exchange or an honest review.
I will admit now that Schneider's Crown of Stones has been one of my favourite series, so I was very excited to get a chance to read her first foray into a different world.
This was awesome, and I really enjoyed it. I found it so much easier to follow, and so much more accessible, with more defined species etc, than Crown of Stones (sorry, Troy).

It starts with her exile from Drimera (the dragon world) a hundred years ago, then quickly jumps ahead to the modern day, where Dahlia is confident in the life she leads. She moves a lot so people don't realise that she's not ageing, picking up different identities as she goes; but she is inevitably drawn back to the city of Sentinel, the only place she recognises as home.

She works as a freelance monster-hunter; monster-mess-cleaner-upper; and an adviser and CSI-type person for the police. It all helps Dahlia feel like she's still doing her duty in protecting Drimera and other the worlds humans have no business knowing.
Dahlia throws herself into this work, to feel like she has a purpose in her long life.

The other characters wedge into Dahlia's obstinately-lonely existence, and I really liked... well, all of them.
Evans in particular is great, he's a geek at heart and provides levity whenever things could get too dark and depressing.

The plot keeps you guessing the whole time, as any murder mystery should - this one just happens to have dragons in it.
It's not afraid to be bloody and violent, and has a matter-of-fact approach to these things. It doesn't shy away, and it doesn't revel in it, it just is.
The story pulls you along with its twists and its great characters, and I would definitely approve reading it.

Next book, please.

Goodreads link
Amazon UK