Punished 

Crescent City Creatures – Book 1

NA / YA Paranormal

Buy: Amazon

By Samantha Stone

Synopsis

Mary just wants to get away from her boss, but quitting her job would leave her and her sister homeless. Raphael is a criminal living with the never-ending guilt of the crimes he committed centuries ago. Punished brings them together in a romance filled with lore, laugher, and love. Samantha Stone is pleased to present Book 1 of her new paranormal romance series, Crescent City Creatures.

Raphael Saar is an exiled werewolf, a convict on the direct path to a death sentence—for a crime he didn’t commit. He doesn’t care, so long as he can end the human trafficking ring kidnapping women across New Orleans.

Recovering from a horrific tragedy, one particularly bad day for Mary Newman has stretched into months. A nanny for a wealthy family in New Orleans, she can’t understand why she’s being constantly humiliated by her boss until the night she learns that he’s not human—and neither is she.

Only Raphael can save her from the monster feeding from her misery, but will Mary be able to stop his execution?

Punished teams up werewolves, banshees, a wompus cat and a haint in order to rid New Orleans of a group of immortals determined to hurt the city’s women and kill Raphael’s pack.

Content Notes: Spicy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Suspense, Shifters, Wolves, Other Weres, Magic, Ghosts

Lis’ Review

Samantha Stone is a new author with a new voice in paranormal fiction. This is her debut novel, and what a story it tells. Mary Newman is the heroine, forced to take a job as nanny to a wealthy family whose only ray of sunshine is their little daughter. Mary has a sister Leila who doesn’t speak for reasons known only to her. Mary thinks it has to do with her witnessing the deaths of their parents but Leila refuses to discuss it. Ever since that death, Mary has been the caretaker for her sister and this nanny job provides a settled place for them to live as well as a full scholarship for her sister to attend university. However, as Mary realizes, nothing comes without a price.

Raphael is a werewolf who’s been banished to a pack in New Orleans for crimes against humanity – literally. Weres are not allowed to harm humans, and Raphael’s punishment stems from killing two humans over 500 years ago. But in present day NOLA he uncovers a human trafficking ring which targets young females and he is determined to save them and eliminate the ring. Which brings him to Thump (which in my opinion is the best name I’ve seen lately for a dance club), a nightclub in the heart of the French Quarter, where he meets Mary and Leila.

We soon learn how Mary gets caught up in the human trafficking ring, and about her unusual ability to avoid being taken prisoner by her wicked boss, the villain in this book. Richard is the epitome of the eeew factor for a villain. Slimy doesn’t even begin to describe this guy. Fortunately, Mary and Raphael team up to combat the evil that Richard is part of, a group of river dolphin shapeshifters known as botos or encantados.

It takes a pack of werewolves, a banshee, a panther shifter and a haint – I really loved Wish, a secondary character so interesting I hope he gets his own story some day – to discover the importance of working together, of forming a family-type bond that strengthens them in order to bring down the trafficking ring and expose the insider who enables the whole thing to prosper in the first place. In this book, the streets of New Orleans are packed with otherworldly creatures who actually try to protect the humans around them.

The author obviously researched her mythology and gives us a decent explanation of the creatures we meet. The book is a good debut, the author telling a good story with interesting characters. I longed for a little more depth of emotion and more seamless transitions, but realizing this is a first novel, I’m sure that will come in future books. The genre is NA, which fits, and might even be suitable for mature YA readers.

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About this author 
I write these tales of long swords, hot heroes, and warrior women. My nine Celtic/ Paranormal/ Romance books are set mainly in the dark ages and ancient times. I also write Steampunk/Romances under the name of Maeve Alpin.