Supernatural It Ain't

I don't know what possessed me to pick up this one... Oh, wait... I remember what it was... It was billed as something, something Supernatural, only if Sam and Dean were "together". I didn't care about the "together" part; I was just in the mood for something to scratch that Supernatural itch without having to rewatch the episodes. In short, I wanted something familiar yet new.

Morgan Brice's Witchbane starts off strong enough with brothers Seth and Jesse Tanner setting off to explore Hellgate, an infamous haunted tunnel in their hometown. Their intention is to debunk the myth surrounding the site, but they soon get more than they bargained for, and younger brother Jesse is brutally butchered by a supernatural entity. Well, at least we know we're not going to have a Wincest situation here.

There's a time jump of two years, during with Seth has become a "hunter," tracking down and dispatching supernatural beings, and we also learn that he's not the only one. There's a whole network of hunters out there, and it seems like every pairing ends up being a gay couple working together. Seth is the only lone wolf -- so we know where this is heading. Seth had figured out who killed his brother, kinda sort of. Seems many many moons ago, some witch was killed, and every year, one of the descendants, the first born of whatever generation, of the original executioners has to be sacrificed by one of the immortal members of the coven in order to maintain their immortality. We also find that the Tanner family was a party to the original executioners and Seth, being the oldest, had been the intended target. So now Seth is out to avenge his brother's death and prevent any of the other descendants from being sacrificed. Enter Jackson "Sonny" Evan Malone, the hot, humpy bartender who Seth ends up going home with, not realizing this is the man he's supposed to be protecting. And this is where the book begins to fall apart.

I knew going in that this was an urban fantasy/paranormal romance/thriller, so I knew there was going to be some sex, and since it was a gay paranormal romance, that the sex was going to be man on man. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was that a little more than half the book is filled with sex and it feels like the urban fantasy/thriller part was thrown in as filler between the sex scenes. Take away the sex scenes and you're left with a very short novella. Additionally, the story takes place over the span of a few days, and we're expected to believe that they've fallen so madly and deeply in love with each other that they can't picture their lives without each other. Look... this is a series, seven books so far. Approach it a little more realistically. Let the romance build over the course of the series. And gay men are not walking hormones; they don't get boners every time a hot guy sneezes, or coughs, or farts, but that certainly seems to be the case here. And that's a shame, really. I had high hopes going into this book and was hoping I'd find something I could lose myself in to satisfy that itch for the monster ass-kicking, brotherly camaraderie of Sam and Dean without resorting to watching the series over again because I gladly would have continued with these books, but I can very easily imagine I'll be getting more of the same, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass. And I recommend you do the same. Final rating: 2/5 stars