Hello, and welcome back! It's about to get very cold here in our region, so I hope all of you are well-stocked with reading material and the warm beverage of your choice. Of course, that'll be for in between your work and shopping times, if you're participating at all in the wild and crazy holiday shopping season that occurs every year in December. Hopefully some of your shopping will be for new reading material.

Night Shadow (Ballantine) is out now, the third in Cherry Adair's newest paranormal T-FLAC trilogy. This time, Alex Stone crosses paths with new operative Alexis Stone (no relation, we're assured) in Russia. Lexi can't help but notice sexy Alex, though she knows he's a far better agent than she is so far. But right now, they've got something odd going on, and it relates directly to the question about whether the man who mentored Alex and his fellow operatives is behind some of the evil things going on. Things like multiple bad guys who look just like Alex and the other agents, only perhaps a little bit younger, and who seem to vanish when they're beaten. Lexi's a smart woman, obviously, or she wouldn't have made the move from accounting to field work, but even she can't prevent or stop her burgeoning feelings for Alex as they pick their way through the dangers that lie in their way. Now they have to work with Alex's team to stop an even bigger evil from spreading into the world, and they don't have much time to figure it all out. They also don't have much chance of managing it and all coming out alive. I liked this one better than the last one, though I'm not certain I can put my finger on quite why. Alex and Lexi are an interesting match, and the stakes are very high in this story, not just for them but for everyone around them and beyond, building the intensity in this one. That intensity also amps up the sparks between this pair, making for a seriously hot read. This one's earned four of Cupid's five arrows.

Until next time, happy reading!