Along Came a Spider (Transplanted Tales)

by Kate SeRine

[Berls]

My top thoughts:
This series is FANTASTIC and this may be my favorite so far? We already knew both the main characters fairly well from the previous two books and I was so eager for their story. And it surpassed my hopes and expectations – not just in their romance and character development, but in the plot as well.

What I liked/didn’t like:
I think one of the things I’m enjoying most about this series is the way it’s breathing life into often ignored fairy tale / nursery rhyme / fictional characters (called Tales) and combining them with familiar ones. We started with Tess “Red” Little (Little Red Riding Hood), a more familiar character that gets lots of attention. But then we drifted it a little with Lavendar (Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother). And now we’re so far off the beaten path with Trish Muffet… Little Miss Muffet! I doubt she’s ever had a book and definitely not one like this. I already knew I loved her from the previous books, but there was so much more to her than I knew. She’s a no-nonsense, tough as hell, forensic scientist for the FMA (Fairytale Management Authority). And I just love the way the nursery rhyme about the spider is all twisted into something so much more in this book. And then her love interest – Nicky Blue – is little Boy Blue (again, way off the beat path)! And I also knew I loved him from previous books. He’s a good bad guy – in that he’s plays on the wrong side of the law, but he’s not out to hurt people – and he’s built wealth for himself in the Here and Now after being a nobody in Make Believe. I felt for him instantly, as his wife (Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet) was killed in book one and he’s tormented over his inability to protect her. He’s busy seeking vengeance. I think if I have one complaint it would be that everyone is Red’s Ex and I like to start seeing stories where she hasn’t slept with the love interest (and I do think those are coming). Not that this caused any friction in this book – Nicky is not in love with Red (though he does care for her) and Red is so in love with Nate. In fact, I also really loved seeing the continuation of her story – she’s pregnant – and Lavender’s story too – they visit! It’s nice the way old characters keep cropping back up.

Beyond the characters, the story is just fantastic. There’s a mystery element – I think these definitely qualify as Fantasy Mysteries/Detective stories. And we have a continuing element that has been a problem since the first book, namely Dracula. But we have a new player on the scene – The Agency – that’s very bad news for the Tales. Well, new in the sense that I think this is the first we’ve heard about them, but they’ve been around for a while. Just in the past two years (which is when book 1 started) they’ve been changing into more of a problematic player. I’ll let you read it and learn more about them for yourself, as you really truly must read this series. I do think you could hop into this one and understand what’s going on, but you’d miss out on a lot of background information and character development, so I wouldn’t recommend it. But they’re great, so why would you want to skip ahead?

This is truly a great combination of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, crime/detective genres to give you all awesomeness.