Review: May Day or vampires, detective and Killian Fucking Drake!

Hello everyone and happy Monday! How are you? And how are your reading going? Today is my day off work and I am so full of adult things to do, that I am tired just thinking about them all… adulting sucks! Anyway, I am back with a review, so… let’s go!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the author and to the editor. All thoughts are my own.

Title: May Day
Series: Seekers 1
Author: Josie Jaffrey
Publication Date: July 9th, 2020
Pages: 312

If the murderer you’re tracking is a vampire, then you want a vampire detective. Just maybe not this one.
It’s not that Jack Valentine is bad at her job. The youngest member of Oxford’s Seekers has an impressive track record, but she also has an impressive grudge against the local baron, Killian Drake.
When a human turns up dead on May Morning, she’s determined to pin the murder on Drake. The problem is that none of the evidence points to him. Instead, it leads Jack into a web of conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the country, people to whom Jack has no access. But she knows someone who does.
To get to the truth, Jack will have to partner up with her worst enemy. As long as she can keep her cool, Drake will point her to the ringleaders, she’ll find the murderer and no one else will have to die.
Body bags on standby.

May Day is the first book in Josie Jaffrey’s Seekers series, an urban fantasy series set in Oxford, England. 

I have one of the other series by this author on my wishlist and so when I found the opportunity to read for review this title I was really curious and I just had to request it! It is true that my expectations were quite high, and that my hard to please mood is persistent and won’t let me alone, so in the end, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping, but it was an enjoyable reading nonetheless.

The starting was quite slow, and I wasn’t so invested in it, but then things really picked up for me with “Killian fucking Drake” (I am quoting our MC here, who has quite the attitude and strong opinions about poor poor Killian!).
He added something to the story, a bit of spicy and I really liked him as a character. It is not that Valentine is a bad MC, she is strong-willed, determined, she has a mind of her own and she doesn’t fear to tell you what she is thinking. And usually, I would fell for a character like her but… But she was lacking something.
And I can say the same for Cam. He is one of the secondary characters, that’s true, but we see a lot of him around and I would have loved for him to feel more real to me. Both Valentine and Cam are lacking some sparks, something that would make them feel more like people than characters in a book.
The spark wasn’t missing in Killian, although. He felt more real than all the other characters and he was my favorite thing in the entire book!

And speaking about favorite, this book quotes The Rocky Horror Picture Show! I was just so happy when I read this:

“Come on out to the lab. See what’s on the slab”

My internal fangirl was screaming and jumping around. I liked Tabitha and this was just the cherry on the top!

And the plot was intriguing. The mystery part was interesting and well developed, and the things are way bigger than they seem, it put in motion a lot of things for the sequel, but we get closure on the case, and this was unexpected, in some ways, but it makes me happy. And that’s not to say that I doubted the author or that the story is not well developed. It is just that the murder they are investigating here is tied to a lot of things, bigger things, and so I wasn’t sure we would get some end, but hey! We did, yay!

Another weak point is the worldbuilding. This is an urban fantasy, so I wasn’t expecting something really peculiar, and it is not poorly done, but… there is something lacking in there, too. We get to see how the Silver (vampires) are and how their society and culture works but… but I was hoping for something more.

All in all it was a fast read, with some good moments and interesting characters, but I was hoping for something more compelling, and I wasn’t as invested in the book as much as I was hoping. It is not a bad start for a series, but it wasn’t the best possible, either. I don’t know if I would continue this series. On one hand I am curious to see more of Killian, on the other… well, as I was saying I wasn’t so invested in all of that so I think I would wait a bit before taking a decision.

What about you? Have you read this book? Or another book by this author? Let me know!!!

Happy reading!
S.