Demonically Tempted

Demonically Tempted is the second book in Stacey Kennedy’s intensely amazing paranormal romance/urban fantasy Frostbite series. The events in Demonically Tempted directly follow those in the first book, Supernaturally Kissed. You should read Supernaturally Kissed before Demonically Tempted. All the 5 star reviews of Supernaturally Kissed were dead-on, it’s fantastic. And so is Demonically Tempted. You’ll be tempted to stay up late to finish it!

Right where Kissed left off, Tess Jennings sees ghosts, especially her ghost-lover, Kipp McGowan, a cop who is determined to continuing serving with the Memphis Police Department, even as a ghost.

But Tess is the only one who can see him. And Tess’ ability to communicate with ghosts is very useful to the cold-case squad. So many cold-cases involve old homicides, and so many victims, well, have the kind of unfinished business that results in ghosts. Ghosts that Tess can help.

Tess gets a job offer from the Memphis P.D. Which she really has no choice about taking. Her old job isn’t there anymore. She spent too much time working with the cops on Kipp’s case. She got fired.

But working with Kipp’s old squad is okay. They accept her and Kipp as a team. But, there’s a problem. The supernatural community is not so accepting. Kipp is a ghost. His issues are resolved. He should cross over. And he isn’t, hasn’t, won’t. Because of Tess.

Tess’ powers are untrained. She started seeing ghosts when she was seventeen, after a very near-death experience. The Police Department has brought in a medium, someone who has more experience working cases, to work with her. Dane Wolfe says he can train her, but something about Dane gives her the heebie-jeebies, even more than the ghosts.

And something is seriously up with the ghost community. There are lots of ghost coming to see her. Deliberately. There is a dark spirit terrorizing them. Tess didn’t even know the ghosts were organized, and now they’re passing the word around about her. They want her to actually “Ghostbust” a bad spirit for them. What’s up with that?

So the quiet life Tess had at the beginning of Supernaturally Kissed is toast. Instead, she’s a police consultant with a ghost-lover and a real would-be Ghostbuster for the good ghosts on the ghostly side of Memphis–something she didn’t know existed. And she feels guilty for keeping Kipp from crossing over. Because she loves him more than she’s ever loved any man, and it’s going to rip her apart when he leaves. Which is what is supposed to happen.

And she’s in the middle of her first real case, which is nothing like it appears to be. And might be part of the whole supernatural Ghostbusting-thing.

Maybe Tess should ask for her quiet life back?

Escape Rating A: This just keeps getting better. And darker and deeper. The urban fantasy mix-in of the cop shop is marvelous–all of Kipp’s squad trying to get used to Tess, and knowing that he’s there watching, but they can’t see him. Some of them answer the question they know he’s just asked, even though they can’t hear it. Now that’s teamwork!

There’s angst here, too. Tess and Kipp know this can’t last forever, and there are definitely problems. Their relationship is hot, but, their ability to physically interact is seriously limited. And they definitely love each other. They want to do what is best for each other, but don’t know what that is, since they have no clue what comes next. What happens to ghost, after?

Demonically Tempted ends on a scrape-your-jaw-off-the-floor cliffhanger. I wanted to reach through my iPad and shake the next book out of Ms. Kennedy right then and there. (This feature needs to be added to future iPads)

The cover reveal for Mystically Bound is tomorrow.