Shelly Laurenston – The unleashing

The first book in the Call of Crows series, published March 31, 2015.
Genre: paranormal romance
Cover: I hate hoodies



Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn't for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even have seen her die. In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig "Vig" Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera. He knows one way to save her life - but she might not like it. Signing up with the Crows will get Kera a new set of battle buddies: cackling, gossiping, squabbling, party-hearty women. With wings. So not the marines. But Vig can't give up on someone as special as Kera.
With a storm of oh-crap magic speeding straight for LA, survival will depend on combining their strengths: Kera's discipline, Vig's loyalty...and the Crows' sheer love of battle. Boy, are they in trouble.


I have read some disappointed reviews about this book from big fans of Shelly Laurenston’s work, and I have to agree with them. Of course you can’t compare one series to another, but something was really lacking here. And I think, it was that I just did not like the heroine. Shelly didn’t give me any reason to like her, except perhaps her age. Was I supposed to like her just because she is a veteran? A former soldier?
Well, I did not. Kera dies while trying to save a young girl, and she is turned into some kind of Immortal warrior of one of the Norse goddesses, to fight on her behalf. They are called Crows. So now Kera has to deal with a new un-life, living in a house filled with other women who seem to do nothing but pursue idle things and leisure time, and who go out killing people when their Goddess wants it.
There is a lot of senseless violence in my opinion, and not in the humorous way of her Shifter series.

And then there is Vig, a true Viking warrior, was has fallen for Kera when she was alive and working in the coffee shop. And Kera just thought he was a homeless Vet, suffering from PTSD and felt sorry for him. But now she just falls in his arms and spends a lot of time with him. And Vig tells her more about her new life, than her supposed mentor does.
Also, without knowing anything yet, Kera just tries to take over the running of the house and the Crows, by making schedules and training sessions. I did not blame the other women from getting irritated with her.
Kera took her dog with her to her new un-life, but the dog was mostly taken over by her fellow Crows, instead of spending time with Kera. Yes, the dog did have some good scenes, but not enough to rescue the book for me.

I did like the Vig part, and I liked his sister who is a Valkyrie, Vig is a weapons master and a smith, and he makes all the magical weapons for all the different clans of Warriors.

O there was a plot in there as well, where an evil Goddess comes back to Earth, manipulating a lot of people into doing her evil work for her. That was very well done, but again, me not liking the heroine at all, it was not enough for me to enjoy the book as much as I wanted to.

6 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian