This is book eight of the Midlife Witchery series and the main character is Aislinn (Ais), a Fae who is part of a small group named Backside of Forty (BoF), with her friends Fiona and Violet who are both witches. Fiona inherited a huge amount of magic and shared it with Ais and Violet, forming their own small coven. Ais is pregnant with a dragon shifter baby and her friends are extremely worried about her and the baby’s health as she is losing so much weight and is really weak. They want her to go back to her home realm of Eidothea, but she has been avoiding it, as she will have to see her baby’s father, who knows nothing of her pregnancy. She met Argies, through Fiona’s mate Bas (Sebastian), as they were best friends and Fiona had helped them take down the evil Fae King. Argies is the brother of the new Fae King Teague and is his general, in charge of his army and more. After he and Ais hooked up, he stayed in Eidothea, while she returned to Earth with her friends and their mates. The three women worked to open a Hellmouth in a previous book and need to stay and maintain it. The time goes very differently in the fae realms and although it has only been months since she saw Argies, it has been years for him and he has never tried to see her or get in touch.
She had thought their relationship would be different from her marriage but after her ex, she refuses to rely on a man, unless he is madly in love with her like Bas is with Fiona, and Thanos is with Violet. She knows that he would probably step up and do the right thing once he knows about the baby, but she doesn’t want that sort of relationship. She needs the help of dragon shifters, to know what might be wrong with her pregnancy and how to safely have the dragon baby, but dragons don’t talk to outsiders! Unless she can get Argies to introduce her to them, she will have problems and may well lose her life as well as her baby’s! Most dragon pregnancies are lost before they get to full term. Even Fiona’s healer can’t do enough to help her. But the supernatural problems in Cottelhill Wilds don’t stop just because she’s pregnant! A woman called Arabella is sent to the BoF ladies to get help to recover her family grimoire. She is from one of the founding families of the city and has some very dangerous spells in their family grimoire, which some bad people would be very keen to have! Another customer arrives at Fiona’s door, needing help to rid their home of a ghost before his wife leaves him and takes the kids with her!
The trio have dealt with lots of dangerous situations, but their main problem is the Dark One and they don’t know when she might attack next. They start to interview possible suspects for the stolen grimoire at Violet’s store, only for all three of them to suddenly be magically whisked off to a dangerous cave system. Each is in separate parts of the caves and Ais has no idea if this is the Dark One who is responsible, but to her the magic seems a bit off. They face stone demons and creepy giant spiders mostly in the dark, as they search for each other and a way out! It seems a bored goddess might have seen what the Dark One was doing ad decided to get stuck into the middle of it, for a bit of amusement! Not a good idea to get on the wrong side of a powerful goddess! Lots of magic and mystery as the trio face the dangers together and Aislinn attempts to delay going home and seeing the baby father, by any excuse possible. Argies doesn’t take the news well to start with, but will step up obviously in the end as he wants to be part of his child’s life, but it takes a lot of time for him to think about it all first. Not a lot of help to a heavily pregnant and hormonal fae woman! When the news is given to his family, they take over everything and start making some decisions about her and the baby and where she should live. Exactly what she feared and will need to wait for the next book to see what happens and where she and the baby end up! I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.