REVIEW: Beware of Psychics - Holly Day - Paranormal Romance Guild

Title: Beware of Psychics
Series: Box Set Collection
Author: Holly Day
Genre: Psychic Romance, Gay Romance
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Release Date: Feb 24, 2024
Format: Kindle
Pages: 378
Source: Amazon

Having a psychic ability should make life easier, but it isn't always the case.

In this box set, you'll meet three men with amazing abilities that could've made their lives great, but instead of making things easier, they cause trouble. Either they have to hide what they can do, or they can't control it. But maybe there is happiness to be found even for an out-of-luck psychic?

Contains the stories:

How to Hook a Vampire: A vampire on guard. A psychic on the run. A cabin with one bed. Jameson trusted the wrong person and hides in his uncle's fishing cabin. Harland comes back after having fed only to find his home inhabited, and no one is happier than him that he didn't snack on the sleeping man when it turns out he’s his boss' nephew. But how long before danger finds them in the cabin?

The Bear Claw: In a world where everyone is either dominant or submissive, Shiro doesn’t have many choices. As a sub, any dom coming to his bakery can give him orders. Pitch wants a mate, but he won’t settle for anything but a true mate. As an alpha shifter, he can have his pick, but his true mate is hiding in the kitchen of a bakery and refuses to see him. How many cups of coffee will it take to lure him out?

Batshit Bassel: Some people perform miracles, others serve soup. Bassel is a psychic with no control over his powers. He'll never work wonders, but he can serve soup. Thor lost his sister and became the guardian of his nephew, but his life doesn't have room for a cub. Bassel aches for the little boy cloaked in grief and the growling bear he lives with, but will soup be enough to ease their sorrows?

Review by: Jay Mountney

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

This is an excellent set of stories, two short novels and a novella. The characters do not overlap but all three books are set in the same ‘world’ where shifters, psychics, vampires and witches are living among humans, though to some extent isolated because of prejudice.

How to Hook a Vampire has a psychic trying to evade capture by humans who want to use his truth-telling skills. He flees to his uncle Frank but in Frank’s cabin finds Harland, a vampire who works for Frank in a supernatural law enforcement agency. There are twists and turns in this very exciting tale that has a focus on consent –Jameson has made some poor choices but has never chosen to use his skills unwisely. There is, it turns out, a plot to kidnap vampires and drain them of their blood for profit, and Jameson’s experiences might just be central to the solution. And Harland might be central to Jameson’s future.

Bear Claw also hinges on the meaning of consent. Shiro is of shifter blood but cannot shift. Instead, he can imbue the food he cooks with emotions. He is also what shifters know as ‘submissive’. After an abusive mate dies he wants nothing to do with sex but Pitch, a ‘dominant’, wants to show him that mating can be a joy. There are other dominants who want Shiro’s bakery, and there is betrayal by friends, but in the end, after a kidnap and escape, Shiro accepts Pitch as his mate.

Batshit Bassel, which is more of a novella, introduces Bassel, a psychic who cannot control his gifts. He makes and sells soup near a night club, and the owner, Thor (a shifter), has an orphaned nephew whose needs bring the two men together. There is drama revolving round the child’s situation, and round Bassel’s premonition of fire.The focus of this story is on inclusivity and on the acceptance of self worth.

All three books are beautifully written with characters who ‘hook’ the reader from the outset. They are exciting and also contain well written sex scenes – for one I didn’t skim – that add to the development of both character and plot. All three end in HEA conclusions which are shown in epilogues.

For anyone who likes paranormal novels I would highly recommend this set and would point out that the box set is not expensive and is also available on KU for readers who subscribe to that.