"Iron & Velvet" by Alexis Hall

Iron & Velvet by Alexis Hall

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I must say, I loved the cover and the title of this book. I don't normally say this in a review, but the cover intrigued me enough to get the book. When I opened it up to begin reading, I found I was very surprised. Firstly, there are a lot of typos and a number of very slang words that I had never heard before. In fact, I had to look them up. I found the definitions of these slang words on UrbanDictionary.com. Words like, "woofle," "wibbly," "wotsit," and "faffed," to name a few, baffled the hell out of me. The whole story reads in what I would consider British slang. Personally, I would have preferred a little more polish overall in this story. However, with that stated, I did really like the story.

Kate Kane is a faery princess by birth, but is a P.I. (Paranormal Investigator) by career choice. As I first started reading this, I became concerned that the author may have mimicked another series I’ve read, that I love very much. However, as the story progressed, I found the only commonality between this story and the other, which I’m not naming on purpose, is that the main character is a P.I. and a faery princess. After that, it builds on its own.

Kate is called in to investigate a murder that has paranormal written all over it. Though Kate is a professional P.I., she kind of handles the case like the proverbial bull in the China shop. She jumps in, makes her insinuations, causes a war to break out then realizes she was wrong and starts all over again. During this investigation, she falls in love with the Prince of Cups, which happens to be an eight hundred year old female vampire. I’d never heard of a woman holding the position of “Prince” so this threw me a bit. You have to understand, I’m an American and this book is written in British slang or perhaps, commoner English. So, it’s quite possible that I’m the only one who didn’t understand. The author does help you to understand what the Prince of Cups is though.

This wasn't a thought provoking story. But the author did such a great job detailing the surrounding areas that one could literally lose their lunch. However, I believe that was the intent as you get into the story. She had to trek through some extremely nasty areas. (No, I'm not saying… read the story yourself!) I would have loved to have had as much detail to describe the intimate moments between Kate and Julian (Prince of Cups). It seemed too shallow for me. However, it leaves me to think that this series will grow into something more and I hope to read the next in this series as well.



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