This e-book was difficult to get through. It seemed to start in the middle of a story, with multiple story-lines and characters with not a whole lot of development or explanation before just jumping in. Once I got into it and figured out who was who and what was going on, it got better. There was a twist at the end, which leads me to want to read the rest of the series, although I'm hesitant at this point to do so. This was a free e-book, so you kind of get what you paid for. The book/story wasn't bad, I did end up enjoying it, it just took a while to get there. It could have used a little more development and backstory at the beginning so you could get a feel for the author's style of writing and a better idea of the characters and how they related to each other. I would recommend if you enjoy witch, supernatural, or fairy-type of stories. ( )

Rest for the Wicked
Claire Wiche Chronicles #1
Paranormal 13 … 4th book
Continuing through the Paranormal 13 book which includes 13 full-length paranormal stories by different authors; I have read and reviewed the first story, Darkangel from The Witches of Cleopatra Hill series by Christine Pope and am trying to read each story in the Paranormal 13 book. I liked the first book so much that I bought and read the next two books in the series immediately afterwards, before I continued on to the next stories in Paranormal 13. I read a little of the next two stories in the book but they were aimed at a younger audience than what I prefer to read since they are about high school kids so I decided to skip to the fourth book in the book.
The fourth book, Rest for the Wicked by Cate Dean is the first book in the Claire Wiche Chronicle series. I was pleased to see that is was aimed for an older audience or at least wasn’t about high school students.
The book starts out with a psychotic woman with some sort of magical powers terrorizing a brother and sister. She kills the sister and puts some kind of spell on the brother, Eric, which makes him obsessed with wanting to kill Claire Wiche who the psycho woman, Natasha, has programmed into his mind, making him believe she was responsible for his sister’s death even though he actually saw Natasha kill her.
Claire Wiche owns and operates a Wicca shop in a small coastal town in California. She is a witch but obviously has some secret that she is hiding, making me wonder if she is something other than a witch but the author doesn’t come right out and say it. She has a friend, Annie, who has magical powers also but she has not learned to use them yet.
Eric shows up across the street from Claire’s shop but there is some sort of festival happening in the town which makes it hard for him to just go in and kill Claire. He ends up going to a pub nearby and runs into Annie who tries to help him because she thinks he is drunk. She sticks him in a cab and sends him to his motel.
Another man shows up at the shop. Claire recognizes him as a Jinn and tells him to leave her alone because she doesn’t trust Jinns. Because I am an avid paranormal romance reader, I know what a Jinn is. I have seen it spelled various ways but if someone wasn’t aware what a Jinn is, they would kind of be lost because the author doesn’t go into much detail. Come to think of it, the whole story isn’t very detailed. I think the author just assumes everyone knows what all the different types of demons and mythological creatures are and leaves it at that. My knowledge of Jinns is limited but in other stories they are usually powerful demons or creatures who are beautiful and use trickery, kind of like genies do. This Jinn, Marcos, did seem to attract women but he seemed honest and willing to help Claire.
I didn’t really connect with any of the characters except maybe Marcos because the author doesn’t go into much detail about any of them. Most of the book is conversation between the characters and the author doesn’t go very deep into their emotions so I just didn’t get a connection to anyone.
The book was just okay for me. It ended on a cliff-hanger like the first story in the book did…hmmm…I wonder if that is a pattern but I don’t really know since I didn’t read the second and third stories in the book. Unlike the first book where I wanted to know what happened so I read the next book in the series, I won’t be reading the next book in this series.

www.paranormalromanceslut.com ( )

Claire Wiche has a secret and someone is ready to exploit it. You can't rely on family to help you when your family is your worst enemy.

During the local magic festival, Claire and her best friend, Annie, are busy with their customers when a couple of strangers show up. Neither is who they claim to be, but both turn out to be important to rescuing the world from the latest crisis in the Wiche family.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes a story about revenge, betrayal, and redemption. ( )