Anna Windsor – Captive heart

The sixth book in the Dark Crescent Sisterhood series, published January 2011.



Hot, wet, and bothered
As the world's only fully trained water Sybil, Andy Myles is too busy battling New York's demonic population and coping with personal tragedy to trust her broken heart to the wrong man. Jack Blackmore, FBI adviser to Manhattan's Occult Crimes Unit, is Army-tough and rattling Andy's nerves big-time, criticizing her strategies for attacking the powerful flesh-feasting Rakshasa. She could happily drown Jack with a rogue wave of her water energy - or her kisses. Honestly, when did hating a man become so hot?
Jack's all human - and he puts his trust in bullets, steel, and fists, not magic. Tough and confident, he's never met a problem he couldn't handle. Then again, he's never fought alongside warrior witches who can kill with a flick of a finger or lost his heart to a wild, unpredictable woman whose kisses taste like sweet southern rain. As a tide of despotic evil sweeps through the streets of New York, Jack's got one chance to stop a malevolent rampage - and claim Andy's heart.


In the previous book, Jack Blackmore came back from his visits to the Motherhouses of the Fire, Earth and Air Sybils a changed man. No longer so obnoxious arrogant, like he is the only one in charge and dedicated to fight demons. Accepting that the Sybils know what they are doing and his equals, not his underlings. And this change makes Andy look at him differently. As he looks at her as a wonderful woman he wants to get to know better.
But the danger is still not over. Mobsters are being killed, torn to pieces. And Jack needs Andy back in New York, as she is one of the best OCU officers with strategy.

The search for the Coven is still going strong, but as Bela, Andy, Camille and Dio are afraid to use their unique powers to search for them since falling in a nasty trap, it is going slow, cold and useless. In the first series of books, the Sybils fought and Andy killed the last Leviathan. And as now is revealed, the Coven leader and his half sister where his children. Trying to up their powers by genetic enhancing, using Rakshasa blood and DNA to create super mobsters, unstoppable by bullets, to fight their battles for them, and capture more paranormal creatures. Like some of the Sluagh, looking for something they lost a long time ago. Allies of the Fire Sybils, they won’t harm them, or help them, but in the end they are after the same thing.
Both Dio and Andy have horrible premonitions of the future, of the resurrecting of the last Rakshasa demon, the death of Andy and her little god daughter Neala, a young fire Sybil, and the mutilation of Dio and the rest of the quad. And if Andy cannot get her powers to work as they should, those premonitions will become reality.


I don’t want to spoil too much of this story, as I did with the previous book. Sorry for that, but I was totally blown away with it. As I am with this one. I love this series, and I hope for a new series. Perhaps featuring Dio and Saul?
If you like strong kick ass heroines and paranormal creatures, the fight against evil, this is really a series you should not miss out on. The characters are all so well written, you have to feel with them. The pain of their past, the losses they suffered, and now the love they find. The doubts about their own abilities, and how they grow into their powers. As usual, the ending of the book was great, filled with love and humor.

Andy was a normal human police officer until she was attacked with elemental water energy, and her latent water Sybil powers were awakened. Now she has to balance being a Sybil Mother, will all those responsibilities, her job as part of a fighting squad, her experience as a police officer, making time for her god children, and her growing love for Jack. It all takes time and energy, and she still is learning about her own powers from Elana. She is afraid of her powers, and unsure how to use them, what she should be doing with them. But she tries. And after losing her last lover Sal, she is trying to open up to Jack. I love her love for food, the strange combinations she is trying, under the pretext: food should never be boring. The date she had with Jack was great too. And when he is not wearing his FBI (=Flaming Bunch of Idiots) suit, he is really hot …
And Jack also had not had an easy life. His father was a mafia assassin, and he had to kill him to protect his mother and sister. After that, he joined the army and his family the Witness Protection Program. He never saw them since. After the army came the black ops, the feds, and the paranormal divisions. He is good at what he does, but he doesn’t put down roots, going from one city or country to the next, fighting demons. Until New York. Until Andy makes him rethink his life, and what he wants out of if. What he could have if he wants it bad enough. Pure human, he is no match for an angry Water Sybil. But at the end of the book, he too is no longer just human, but something more. He will live as long as she does, if they don’t die in battle that is.
And the quad as a whole, they finally get the respect and acknowledgement they so richly deserve from the various mothers. Their powers are needed in this fight, and for the next generations to come.

Anna Windsor’s writing style is exactly as I like my books: kick ass women, but they can lean on their man if necessary. Stubborn and powerful, and fighting. But there is also room for humor in the book, little quirks, personalities evolving. She writes fluently, and fast paced. Lots of action, and some very hot love scenes. Even though all the other characters in the previous books are still in this one, Andy and Jack are stage center. You just keep on reading, needing to finish the book and at the same time, not wanting it to end. So Anna Windsor, please keep writing more books in this great world you invented.

9,5 stars.