Review: Something Wicked by Lily Morton

Title: Something Wicked

Series: Black and Blue: Book Three

Author: Lily Morton

Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited

Length: 340 Pages

Category: Paranormal Romance

Rating: 3.5 Stars

At a Glance: Overall, while I liked the horror and mystery elements of Something Wicked a great deal, I think the advancing of Blue and Levi’s relationship may have been better served in a story less fraught with butchery. It felt trite in juxtaposition. That said, if Blue is happy, I’m happy too.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: After powerful psychic Blue Billings fell in love with Levi Black, he believed their biggest challenges would arise from Blue’s ability to see and speak to the dead. So it’s rather alarming when he and Levi are confronted with a spate of new—and frightening—problems that have to do with the realm of the living.

A sadistic serial killer is stalking their beloved York, and Blue himself is in the killer’s crosshairs. Blue and Levi must race against time to catch the murderer as the deaths increase in ferocity. But when they’re forced from their home, and close acquaintances seemingly disappear like mist over the Minster’s spires, Blue finds that he is completely and terrifyingly on his own, and for the first time in his life, he’s without his powers.

Review: If you’re familiar with Lily Morton’s work, you may want to note that Something Wicked is a departure from the author’s usual lighthearted romantic comedies. Blue Billings has always had it a little rougher than many of Morton’s characters, being a powerful medium in a city full of ghosts among them, but this book delves deeper into something so corrupt, so humanly evil, that it bears noting if body horror is a no-go for you, this is the sort of wicked Blue faces from a serial killer.

The cheeky banter as Blue, Levi, Will, and Tom work to unravel the grisly murders serves more as a defense mechanism against the strain of their continued failure to find a killer than it is a means of blithe humor in the story. If it feels out of place at times, what with the victim count increasing, it is, but my take is that it’s relevant to Blue’s ability to remain grounded while the inescapable visions of the killings invade his mind. He endures a lot in this installment of the Black and Blue series, including being isolated for a while from the very thing that makes him unique.

As for the romantic elements, because this is a Romance, it could be said it felt as incompatible to the story as the humor, considering the murderous rampage happening in York. Blue and Levi’s relationship has reached a level of sweet that felt misplaced when pitted against the crimes and criminal they faced. Whether that is a positive or negative for each reader comes down to what one expects from the perpetual horror and terror being perpetrated against the victims and, in turn, Blue.

Overall, while I liked the horror and mystery elements of Something Wicked a great deal, I think the advancing of Blue and Levi’s relationship may have been better served in a story less fraught with butchery. It felt trite in juxtaposition. That said, if Blue is happy, I’m happy too.