Hexbreaker, by Jordan L. Hawk (Hexworld #1)

Good night and hello again! As I promised earlier, I’m back with another gay book review, haha! This time, is another marvelous work from one of my favorite authors ever: Jordan L. Hawk! She was awesome and kind enough to send me a copy of Hexbreaker, first book in the Hexworld series and her newest release that hit stores as we speak, in exchange for an honest review ❤ As soon as I discovered the existence of Hexbreaker, I was already fangirling like crazy, so it is no wonder it took me only a day to finish it. It could have been less, but the house insisted on throwing a tantrum and not cleaning itself alone, forcing me to stop my reading in the middle to tend to it, ugh!

But the moment has arrived, so let’s talk about my new sweet darling Hexbreaker 😀

19^th century, New York City. But not quite as you know it…

In a world full of magic, shifters – mostly called familiars – and witches, Cicero is a cat working under the Metropolitan Witch Police. As most of familiars, Cicero had yet to find his witch and forge a magic bond, so he stayed under the Magic Police’s protection along several other shifters.

As his animal form may suggest, Cicero is all grace, ego, beauty and sassiness. A true intellectual with passion for any kind of art, a bohemian at heart. A liberal lover, an independent creature that dreaded and fantasized about the moment in which he would encounter his witch (haha). He knew his time was running and he would have to pick someone in case his witch didn’t show up, but what if his witch turned to be a beast in permanent human form? What if his witch would be some random bully with only muscles and no brains at all? Cicero wouldn’t put up with the abuse – but also didn’t want to deal with the rejection, that hit so close to home.

A literal opening of door proved all his fears true in the wardrobe-sized person of Tom Halloran, a bulky ogre. A copper. A man with no brains and zero magic ability… According to tests.

His witch.

Tom Halloran is one of the last honorable coppers left in the regular Metropolitan Police Department. After an awful episode under his watch, he gathered his courage and got his superior’s permission to report to the Metropolitan Witch Police. Tom is a man of many secrets with a terrible stained past, but he never gave up standing for those who needed him. He wouldn’t allow something that awful to happen on his watch and neighborhood again.

And if solving the case meant he would have to put up with some weird and moody fellow and his tantrums, so be it. Tom was sick of seeing blood being spilled by his family’s mistakes. He was sure that he and the cat Cicero could make their forced partnership work if Cicero looked past Tom’s simple ways and appearance.

The only thing both men agreed on was that they would never think of losing their hearts along the way.

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

First things first: I am sorry for the giant blurb, but this is the kind of story that you feel like asking your friends to gather around a fire while you tell it, haha! Second, I’m so not impartial regarding Jordan’s work BECAUSE SHE RULEZ! Hexbreaker was my fitfth book by her and I loved every single one of them ❤ If Ava March is my queen for gay sugared historical romances, Jordan is my queen for gay paranormal historical romances *–*

I had great expectations for Hexbreaker and Hawk managed to surpass them all and still leave me gapping at the final twist. I kind of guessed the culprit pretty fast, but the motives and who really pulled the strings remained a mystery for me until the last second. AND IT WAS GREAT! I loved every minute of this book and now I just need to grab the prequel too or I will have an attack or something! (Yes, there is a prequel, more info here, haha!) Once again, Jordan got my heart, squeezed tight, threw it to the wall and said goodbye with a blown kiss. Results? FIVE BEAUTIFUL STARS!

The narrative style was third person ( ❤ ), with switching points of view between Cicero and Tom. I loved how much sentiment, feelings and depth Hawk manage to put through Hexbreaker’s pages, sucking the reader in and refusing to let go while you were away from the book. Not for the first time when it comes to her work, I found myself vacuuming my apartment and thinking so hard that you could see steam coming from my ears. Who? Why? What am I missing on this picture? Who is safe to trust, who can I blame?

This was my level of concentration on what my body was actually doing lol

I find amazing the amount of power that Hawk has over my mind each time I pick one of her books to read. I can’t disconnect, I can’t let it go, I need to get to the very bottom of the mystery or the problem in order to start breathing again. You may want to grab a chair, it’s reflection time.

Being a book blogger, it’s normal for me to read quite a lot. I already read quite a lot before becoming a blogger, but since then, I’ve been breaking personal record after personal record in reading matters. And despite being lucky enough to enjoy a big part of what I read, there are a handful of books that seem to work some kind of black magic on me. As I read them, I feel like I’m not into my body anymore. There are no pages, paper, screens, hands, eyes. Nothing. Just a wild swirl of emotions that once was me and the story unfolding in my head. And if I’m interrupted, I feel physically difficult to move my body. To get my legs working, my eyes adjusting to the world. And it feels so… Wrong. My own body feels out of place. I feel like I could just detach myself from it and walk away. Fly, I don’t know. I feel like I have to fight to remain in my reality and not fall back into the book’s one. Like my reality was the fictional one, the hard place to get into, and not the other way around.

Hexbreaker was one of the books that stripped me from my own body. To the point that I didn’t hear my phone ringing right next to me, that my dad had to poke me hard in the forehead to let me know about dinner and that my mom had to throw a blanket over me because I was under dressed to the weather and wouldn’t hear her commands to put on a hoodie and socks.

And when I get back and realize what has happened, how hard I fell for the book, I feel in my bones why reading can be the best experience of one’s life. The best moment of one’s  day. That breath of fresh air into a dull existence without any real excitement. When I open a book, I become Bilbo Baggins going out on an adventure. And nothing else matters outside of the pages in my hands, no matter if they are literal or digital.

Sorry for the major reflection, haha! My whole point is that I suffered from lured mind into book pages in all my Hawk’s reads so far, just with variation of stages in its seriousness. Hexbreaker for sure is the champion so far on the list, haha!

Back to the story. As you may have guessed, the plot is brilliant, with a nice degree of complexity to it and a perfect mix of elements. Romance, mystery, humor, thriller, drama, action, paranormal… It all entwined in such harmony in Hawk’s writing that I felt like that New York was real and in front of me. Hawk’s combines very well obvious events with jaw-dropping twists and doesn’t waste a single scene over her chapters. Every small thing has a purpose, a catch to it. We still have some questions, but this is a series and I know that Hawk won’t leave us in the dark 🙂 No pressure, haha!

The characters were bewitching and surprised me a lot. I knew I’d like Tom since the moment he appeared, but liking Cicero too was unexpected. I usually prefer my gay protagonists all males that happen to like other all males and Cicero was clearly a diva. But he grew on me so quickly that I didn’t even noticed when I started pinning for him too =O Only Tom made it to My Bookish Boyfriends list, but I’d love to have Cicero as a Bookish Bff. I’m sure we would laugh a lot together, haha!

I loved how perfect Tom was in his imperfections. He isn’t your typical dashing knight in a shining armor or the prince charming. He’s a regular poor guy, built for hard labor, too big, with the minimal scholarship and no fashion sense whatsoever. And, just like Cicero, I found him to be quite refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the classical handsome and perfect princes and knights, but sometimes is nice to see new scenarios, haha!

I’m also now very interested in Dominique and Rook’s story. They are the main couple in the prequel novella mentioned on the beginning of this review and I am ashamed to confess that I still hadn’t the opportunity to buy it, oops! So poor of me.

I really need to fix that, ugh!

Oh, and can we just stop for a moment just to appreciate this cover? It is so delicate, classy, sexy and colorful! *—*

Also, I’d like to highlight how well Hawk handed the sex scenes on the book. They are few and all have a very distinct purpose: to show how Cicero and Tom’s relationship was growing stronger with time and how they slowly fell in love with each other behind the lust. Dear Jordan…

Overall, Hexbreaker is a swoon-worthy romance packed with surprised and magic. If you like historical romances, paranormal books, shifters and seat-grabbing books, just drop my blog and go get your copy, haha!

Thanks so much for reading my review! Sorry for the size and the thoughts in the middle of it, haha! Also, an enormous thank you to the Queen Jordan, that sent me her book in the first place ❤ CAN YOU TELL I’M IN LOVE WITH THE HEX WORLD?!

Bellow, you’ll find the purchase links for Hexbreaker, my post talking about its release (there are insights of Jordan herself on it) and the other books by Jordan that I already reviewed 😀

You can find Hexbreaker in both paperback and ebook formats!!

Amazon | Amazon UK | ARe | Smashwords | Kobo | iBooks | Nook

You can see my previous post about Hexbreaker and The 13^th Hex here 🙂

And here we have my full list of reviews for Jordan’s books so far:

HAWK, Jordan L. – Dangerous Spirits, Spirits #2 (review here!)

HAWK, Jordan L. – Widdershins, Whyborne & Griffin #1 (review here!)

Another one is already in the oven, so stay tuned! 😀