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Blood Trails #16
Skinned
Being at the mercy of someone you’ve wronged is never good.
When they’ve had a hundred years to plan their revenge, it’s worse.
Scath is serving her first weregild, and to fulfill her duty, she’ll have to enter the world of muleskinners—skinwalker-adjacent magic users who rely on enchanted animal skins to access their magic. Two of them have been killed and their enchanted skins stolen within the past week, and the primal sidhe lord Baine has set Scath the task of finding the killer—with a few special conditions.
Condition no contacting the authorities. No Vanguard, no queens, no cops…and no Detective Sergeant Liam Osbourne.
Condition Scath is to hand over the killer—and the missing skins—to him.
Shade’s not about to let Scath face the weregild alone. Together they proceed with the investigation, each of them bracing themselves for the worst.
And they’re both shocked when they find it.
When they’ve had a hundred years to plan their revenge, it’s worse.
Scath is serving her first weregild, and to fulfill her duty, she’ll have to enter the world of muleskinners—skinwalker-adjacent magic users who rely on enchanted animal skins to access their magic. Two of them have been killed and their enchanted skins stolen within the past week, and the primal sidhe lord Baine has set Scath the task of finding the killer—with a few special conditions.
Condition no contacting the authorities. No Vanguard, no queens, no cops…and no Detective Sergeant Liam Osbourne.
Condition Scath is to hand over the killer—and the missing skins—to him.
Shade’s not about to let Scath face the weregild alone. Together they proceed with the investigation, each of them bracing themselves for the worst.
And they’re both shocked when they find it.
266 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 14, 2024
46 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Blackstream
56 books512 followersJennifer Blackstream is a USA Today bestselling author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. She is amazed and grateful to have made a writing career out of a Master’s degree in Psychology, hours of couch-detecting watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and endless research into mythology and fairy tales. She firmly believes that whether it’s a village witch deciding she wants to be a private investigator, or a single mother having a go at being a full time writer, it’s never too late for a new adventure.
A fervent devotee of cooperative board games, Jennifer sets aside at least two nights a week for team-based adventures such as Mice & Mystics, Sentinels of the Multiverse, or Harry Potter: Battle at Hogwarts. She uses games with dice-based mechanics to lure in her ridiculously lucky-rolling son and daughter in the hope that they too will develop a passion for cooperative escapism.
Jennifer currently has three series going:
BLOOD PRINCE SERIES (PARANORMAL ROMANCE, COMPLETE):
Book 1 – Before Midnight
Book 2 – One Bite
Book 3 – Golden Stair
Book 4 – Divine Scales
Book 5 – Beautiful Salvation
Bonus Adventures in the Blood Prince World:
Book 2.5 – What Big Teeth You Have (free when you sign up for mailing list mentioned below)
Book 4.5 – The Pirate’s Witch
Book 5.5 – Dead to Begin With (available only between Thanksgiving and whenever Jennifer takes her Christmas tree down)
BLOOD REALM SERIES (PARANORMAL ROMANCE, IN PROGRESS SPIN-OFF OF BLOOD PRINCE SERIES):
Book 1 – All for a Rose
Book 2 – Blue Voodoo
Book 3 – The Archer
Book 4 – Bear With Me
Book 5 – Stolen Wish
BLOOD TRAILS SERIES (URBAN FANTASY, ONGOING)
Book 1 – Deadline
Book 2 – Monster
Book 3 – Taken
Book 4 – Corruption
Book 5 – Mercenary
Book 6 – Caged
Book 7 – Betrayal
A fervent devotee of cooperative board games, Jennifer sets aside at least two nights a week for team-based adventures such as Mice & Mystics, Sentinels of the Multiverse, or Harry Potter: Battle at Hogwarts. She uses games with dice-based mechanics to lure in her ridiculously lucky-rolling son and daughter in the hope that they too will develop a passion for cooperative escapism.
Jennifer currently has three series going:
BLOOD PRINCE SERIES (PARANORMAL ROMANCE, COMPLETE):
Book 1 – Before Midnight
Book 2 – One Bite
Book 3 – Golden Stair
Book 4 – Divine Scales
Book 5 – Beautiful Salvation
Bonus Adventures in the Blood Prince World:
Book 2.5 – What Big Teeth You Have (free when you sign up for mailing list mentioned below)
Book 4.5 – The Pirate’s Witch
Book 5.5 – Dead to Begin With (available only between Thanksgiving and whenever Jennifer takes her Christmas tree down)
BLOOD REALM SERIES (PARANORMAL ROMANCE, IN PROGRESS SPIN-OFF OF BLOOD PRINCE SERIES):
Book 1 – All for a Rose
Book 2 – Blue Voodoo
Book 3 – The Archer
Book 4 – Bear With Me
Book 5 – Stolen Wish
BLOOD TRAILS SERIES (URBAN FANTASY, ONGOING)
Book 1 – Deadline
Book 2 – Monster
Book 3 – Taken
Book 4 – Corruption
Book 5 – Mercenary
Book 6 – Caged
Book 7 – Betrayal
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 27, 2024
I dunno. I’m struggling with this one, not that it didn’t have its good points. I’ve been exploring “cozy mysteries” lately and they just make the mysteries in this series shine all the more.
So many problems with Liam and Shade have been hand-waved away that any suspense built around these two is going to be very predictable and it really compromised this book in particular. Again, they weren’t developed on-page for me, so I’m bored and just don’t care or am totally confused.
Another issue is how Scath is a cat shifter. The story there is not something I’ve seen before and there’s a reason for it. Feels like someone served me mayo on my ice cream and swears it’s great. The world-building needed to be very different for this to be plausible for me.
I’m beyond confused about how Shade’s magic works. She’s always had her own non-witch magic. Then she finds out she can tap into Scath for more and Scath made her swear to not use it. Now her non-witch magic’s always come from Scath?
Suddenly Shade has earned the trust of the pack. I about flipped when I read this. Up until now, Shade’s repeatedly risked her life for them but they’re so isolationist, magic-phobic and in their own ways that Shade was still almost universally loathed by pack. A few books ago, she said something about Edwin being one of her few allies and whole book centered around just how deeply and thoroughly they hated Shade. That book ended with Shade risking the pack to save Flint, something which should have made things much worse. Liam just totally ditched his job, his pack and the rehab facility for a few days dumping the load on others for Shade’s non-pack problems. That must have gone over well. The pack’s skepticism is not without reason. In addition to Anton and Flint, Shade not only didn’t understand or respect their ways, she couldn’t be bothered to even learn about their ways despite dating a wolf for months for whatever reason. It all appears to be some of the amounts-to-nothing problems. Now with Shade being who she is, the Unseelie Queen is sort of her adopted-mom. And it was revealed that Anton was really the power behind her contract and Flint was just his tool. The isolationist pack now doesn’t care about these? They’re suddenly so all about Shade that they no longer care that Anton, Anton’s enemies (everyone thinks she’s Anton’s witch which Liam and the pack have surely heard about), the Unseelie Queen, Mother Hazel, Flint (Liam still owes a favor to him) and who knows who else is all up in pack business? Is this a ret-con? Continuity error? Did something huge happen off-page?
My last issue is the one-book HEA romance tone of the ending. Not my favorite genre. Lots of people being perfect. We know because we’re told so. Repeatedly. Lots of generic, perfect conversation that didn’t need to be there. Too many things feeling forced into place. I expected further merging of the PR world and the UF world and am ok with it. I guess I’m comparing it to Karen Marie Moning’s stellar blending of the two for the first 5 books of her Fever series. But that only worked because the HEA romance tropes and style were left at the door.
I’m not sure if this is for me anymore as it seems to be doubling down on what’s consistently weighing down an otherwise great series.
So many problems with Liam and Shade have been hand-waved away that any suspense built around these two is going to be very predictable and it really compromised this book in particular. Again, they weren’t developed on-page for me, so I’m bored and just don’t care or am totally confused.
Another issue is how Scath is a cat shifter. The story there is not something I’ve seen before and there’s a reason for it. Feels like someone served me mayo on my ice cream and swears it’s great. The world-building needed to be very different for this to be plausible for me.
I’m beyond confused about how Shade’s magic works. She’s always had her own non-witch magic. Then she finds out she can tap into Scath for more and Scath made her swear to not use it. Now her non-witch magic’s always come from Scath?
Suddenly Shade has earned the trust of the pack. I about flipped when I read this. Up until now, Shade’s repeatedly risked her life for them but they’re so isolationist, magic-phobic and in their own ways that Shade was still almost universally loathed by pack. A few books ago, she said something about Edwin being one of her few allies and whole book centered around just how deeply and thoroughly they hated Shade. That book ended with Shade risking the pack to save Flint, something which should have made things much worse. Liam just totally ditched his job, his pack and the rehab facility for a few days dumping the load on others for Shade’s non-pack problems. That must have gone over well. The pack’s skepticism is not without reason. In addition to Anton and Flint, Shade not only didn’t understand or respect their ways, she couldn’t be bothered to even learn about their ways despite dating a wolf for months for whatever reason. It all appears to be some of the amounts-to-nothing problems. Now with Shade being who she is, the Unseelie Queen is sort of her adopted-mom. And it was revealed that Anton was really the power behind her contract and Flint was just his tool. The isolationist pack now doesn’t care about these? They’re suddenly so all about Shade that they no longer care that Anton, Anton’s enemies (everyone thinks she’s Anton’s witch which Liam and the pack have surely heard about), the Unseelie Queen, Mother Hazel, Flint (Liam still owes a favor to him) and who knows who else is all up in pack business? Is this a ret-con? Continuity error? Did something huge happen off-page?
My last issue is the one-book HEA romance tone of the ending. Not my favorite genre. Lots of people being perfect. We know because we’re told so. Repeatedly. Lots of generic, perfect conversation that didn’t need to be there. Too many things feeling forced into place. I expected further merging of the PR world and the UF world and am ok with it. I guess I’m comparing it to Karen Marie Moning’s stellar blending of the two for the first 5 books of her Fever series. But that only worked because the HEA romance tropes and style were left at the door.
I’m not sure if this is for me anymore as it seems to be doubling down on what’s consistently weighing down an otherwise great series.
March 10, 2025
This was weird, as murder mystery. It started out with the usual crime scene, talk to witnesses, gather evidence, etc. Then It took a turn to be way more about who hired them and why, such that by the time the real murderer was revealed he got about one sentence about why he did it. That coupled with hundred year old grudges from a character like Baine who I find pretty boring, and the ominous "be careful, your choices are going to turn you into someone you won't like" that is one of my least favorite urban fantasy tropes (Anita Blake? others?) and this one is one of my least favorite in the series.
May 10, 2024
Oh my goodness, this book is amazing! As the series continues, it doesn't lose the mystery. The characters are well written and the storyline line is unexpected. With Scath having to fulfill her 1st weregild task, things take a completely surprising turn. The story is fast moving with multiple twists and excitement. Well done Jennifer Blackstream!!!
May 24, 2024
Another riveting instalment!
Skinned was another riveting read in Ms. Blackstream Blood Trails series. I enjoyed the subtle clues and twists and turns in the book. I also enjoyed getting a closer look at Yvette the human and her interesting familial ties.
I read this book in less than a day and enjoyed every single word.
Skinned was another riveting read in Ms. Blackstream Blood Trails series. I enjoyed the subtle clues and twists and turns in the book. I also enjoyed getting a closer look at Yvette the human and her interesting familial ties.
I read this book in less than a day and enjoyed every single word.
May 27, 2024
Another excellent read
Another great addition to one of my favourite series. A fast paced and action packed storyline where Shade has to help her friend solve a murder and bring the culprit to the fae. Kept me guessing until the very end and loved the twist ending. Highly recommend.
Another great addition to one of my favourite series. A fast paced and action packed storyline where Shade has to help her friend solve a murder and bring the culprit to the fae. Kept me guessing until the very end and loved the twist ending. Highly recommend.
May 18, 2024
Exciting, thrilling, fast-paced mystery with my favorite witch Shade and her crew of fascinating helpers. I love Peasblossom and Scath who is kind of the main character this time.
This book made me bite my nails, scream and cry and I loved it from beginning to end.
More, please?
This book made me bite my nails, scream and cry and I loved it from beginning to end.
More, please?
June 9, 2024
Never a disappointment
I love this series, the characters and the carefully woven plots that have held up over what... sixteen volumes and counting... This is one of the few series I follow.
I love this series, the characters and the carefully woven plots that have held up over what... sixteen volumes and counting... This is one of the few series I follow.
August 5, 2024
Whoa
Ok now I didn't c that plot twist I figure Baine was going to get what he wanted. Didn't c Scath father was alive and that baine had something do with all quad things happened. Or that Yvette was a grand daughter of a King.
Ok now I didn't c that plot twist I figure Baine was going to get what he wanted. Didn't c Scath father was alive and that baine had something do with all quad things happened. Or that Yvette was a grand daughter of a King.
May 18, 2024
Brilliant as always can’t wait for the next book
June 9, 2024
Fantastic
How Jennifer Blackstream continues to amaze us with more tales from Blood Trails The more that is revealed the more questions arise. Keep writing!
How Jennifer Blackstream continues to amaze us with more tales from Blood Trails The more that is revealed the more questions arise. Keep writing!
June 26, 2024
always perfect escapism
Blood Trails has the perfect amount of fantasy, romance, and excitement. Looking forward to Jennifer's next book for my air travel read.
Blood Trails has the perfect amount of fantasy, romance, and excitement. Looking forward to Jennifer's next book for my air travel read.
July 19, 2024
5 Stars:)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews