Audiobook: Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs

Dead Heat
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Holter Graham
Publication: Brilliance Audio (March 3, 2015)
Length: 11 hours and 25 minutes

Description: Praised as "the perfect blend of action, romance, suspense and paranormal" Rex Robot Reviews, the Alpha and Omega novels transport listeners into the realm of the werewolf, where Charles Cornick and Anna Latham embody opposite sides of the shifter personality. Now a pleasure trip drops the couple into the middle of some bad supernatural business....

For once, mated werewolves Charles and Anna are not traveling because of Charles' role as his father's enforcer. This time their trip to Arizona is purely personal, as Charles plans to buy Anna a horse for her birthday. Or at least it starts out that way....

Charles and Anna soon discover that a dangerous Fae being is on the loose, replacing human children with simulacrums. The Fae's cold war with humanity is about to heat up - and Charles and Anna are in the cross fire.

My Thoughts: This was another excellent addition to the Alpha and Omega series. Charles and Anna travel to Arizona which allows Charles to see an old friend and buy Anna an Arabian horse for her 26th birthday. For once, they are not traveling on Bran's business which makes Charles the executioner who eliminates werewolves who are out of control and a danger to werewolves everywhere.

Things go sideways immediately after their arrival. First of all, Charles's old friend Joseph Sani is dying of lung cancer. Even though Charles is willing to turn Joseph to a werewolf and Joseph's father who is the head of the Arizona pack is putting pressure on him to make his son a werewolf, Joseph is adamant about not becoming a werewolf. Charles needs to deal with his grief at the idea of losing one of his few friends.

Second, Joseph's daughter-in-law Chelsea has been placed under a geas to kill her children and then kill herself. Because Chelsea is witchborn, she is able to resist the geas but only by injuring herself with the knife she was supposed to use to murder her children. She is injured so badly that Charles offers her - through her husband Cage - the option of becoming a werewolf which he takes for her.

Third, Charles and Anna need to find the fae who placed the geas and who has been hunting and killing children for hundreds of years in the Phoenix area. They have the help of the FBI in the person of their friend Leslie Fisher who was reassigned to Arizona to be near the fae reservation there after her previous case in Boston. They also have the help of two CNTRP agents who are actually useful.

As they investigate, the fae is still on the hunt for Joseph's five-year-old granddaughter Mackie and Charles and Anna will do anything to keep her safe. The hunt for the fae known as the Doll Collector brings up a lot of issues for Charles and lets Anna know why he has been so reluctant to have children with her.

This was a powerful story. I loved the relationship between Charles and Anna. The emotional intensity of Charles dealing with the grief at the up-coming death of his friend Joseph was strong and brought me to tears more than once as I listened to this story. I loved the message that love is what matters even if the end result is loss and grief and sorrow.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.