A Void of Magic: A Kennedy Rain Urban Fantasy

Sandy Williams

Jul 2021 · Kennedy Rain Book 1 · Sandy Williams

About this eBook

They trusted her to keep the peace between the paranorms. They made a mistake.

Kennedy escaped the family business when she turned eighteen. Now, an ill-timed vacation pulls her back to The Rain Hotel, the only known null zone on the planet. It’s a place where vampires can see the sun rise and werewolves can avoid the lure of the full moon. And it would be the perfect place for a paranormal wedding…if the bride wasn’t the local alpha’s daughter and the groom the scion of a vicious master vampire.

With a sexy werewolf determined to sabotage the wedding and dark forces threatening The Rain, Kennedy’s life is thrown out of balance when she’s forced to confront a past she swore to avoid. Ultimately she must choose: will she maintain the stability of the supernatural world…or will she destroy it.

Keywords: new contemporary fantasy, new paranormal fantasy shifters, new urban fantasy, new release, urban fantasy romance, contemporary fantasy, contemporary fantasy, werewolf romance, fantasy, vampire books, alpha urban fantasy, urban fantasy magic, sword and sorcery, epic urban fantasy, paranormal romance, new adult urban fantasy, series starter, urban fantasy trilogy, paranormal, witches, magic

Ratings and reviews

I enjoyed the fast paced introduction to this new series, Kennedy Rain, by Sandy Williams. This sets up a world filled with paranormal creatures. This has plenty of lingering questions that will leave you wanting more. This is a unique storyline with surprising twists.

I requested an ARC based on the cover and the blurb and I was not disappointed. Warning, this is the first book in the series so although it is fast-paced with a lot going on, there is no resolution - there is definitely a To Be Continued ... Kennedy Rain's family own the Rain Hotel, it is situated in an area of null magic which means that paranormals staying at the hotel are not bound by their normal limitations (eg vampires can walk in the daylight, werewolves aren't forced to change at the full moon etc). Kennedy hates the hotel and the paranormal world, she's spent as much time as possible avoiding the hotel, but her parents have gone on holiday and asked her to look after things. Things are going badly, the paranormal staff hate her, the hotel is being inspected for the first time in living memory and Kennedy's arch-nemesis from school, Nora, the daughter of the werewolf Alpha has demanded that the Rain Hotel host her wedding, to the vampire leader's second-in-command - no way that's going to end well. Add in the werewolf second-in-command who isn't used to humans resisting his authority, parents who won't answer the phone, a werewolf Princess with entitlement issues and rising hostilities between the paranormals and Kennedy is fighting fire on all sides. I really enjoyed this, there are enough ambiguities about some of the paranormals to keep you guessing. I would love to read the second book in the series and look forward to it. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

For generations the Rain family has operated a hotel on their land that has acted as a place of respite for paranorms. Vampires can see the sunrise and werewolves aren't pushed into a frenzy at the full moon. Because of this the Rains have always been tasked with keeping a neutral kind of peace between the various paranorm factions, following a specific set of rules put in place long before anyone can remember. Five years ago Kennedy Rain ran afoul of these rules and left her parents to go to college intending on never looking back. But Kennedy has reluctantly decided to fill in for them while they're away on vacation. Except it seems that everything that can go wrong is going wrong to the point where is seems like someone is out to ruin the Rains. With her parents gone, and not knowing who to trust, Kennedy is on her own. She just has to make it until her parents get back. It's been so long since I've read a vampire/werewolf-centric series (there are other paranorms, but for the moment the vampire and werewolf are the main ones). I loved getting back to what I tend to think of as "the beginning" of the paranormal / urban fantasy genre. These were the types of books I gravitated toward when I started reading the genre, but of course things have changed over the years. So when I get to go back into that space, I always feel this sense of nostalgia. I really loved the setting of this story / series. The idea of there being an area where these paranorms can basically live as human again is super interesting and presents all sorts of cool possibilities to explore. Also, just the history of the area itself. How things came to be, not just with the land, but with the Rain family. I feel like there's more to unpack. And if it's something that might not happen within Kennedy's storylines, hopefully maybe a spinoff or novella could broaden this area of this fictionalized world a bit. As for Kennedy - and the rest of the characters - it was a bit difficult to get a good beat on them. Kennedy comes back into this world, this life, that she abandoned five years ago and doesn't necessarily fit within it anymore. Her goals and ideals have changed from when she was a child and loved the magic of the paranorms. As she grew her eyes were opened to other aspects of the secret magical world and she didn't really agree with everything she saw. To come back now, she's also looked upon as an outsider by the paranorms. So there's a lot of distrust on both sides and for this reader, if it takes me more than half the book to start to trust a character - including the main character - that's too long. I give it a slight pass because, to be fair, a lot is thrown at Kennedy in such a short amount of time. It's almost overwhelming. But I have Sandy Williams props because I felt like I was right there with Kennedy every time something else turned up wrong. By the end, I had my feelings towards the characters figured out, and I'm definitely invested to the point where I need to find out what happens next. Plus I would not turn down any more page time spent between Kennedy and werewolf enforcer Blake, just sayin'. Overall, I liked all the things this book reminded me of, but I loved the new territory is claimed for its own.

About the author

Sandy Williams writes urban fantasy and science fiction, both with a strong shot of romance. She's a fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope and loves books with high stakes and fantastical settings. When she's not being a bookworm, she loves playing board and card games like Dominion, Quacks of Quedlinburg, Dungeon Petz, etc (but not Goblins because she ALWAYS loses that damn game). Her next book, A Void of Magic, releases in the summer of 2021.

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