Rating: 4.5 Stars

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre:  Gay Romance 

Tags: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Necromancers, Suspense

Length: 373 Pages 

Reviewer: Kazza

Purchase At: amazon 

Blurb:

Two men. Three secrets. Denial of a fated mate bond. And a future that might already be set.

To the rest of the world, Calisto Dominguez is just a necromancer. Not a man with special abilities whose imaginary childhood friend isn’t so imaginary. Good. One catastrophic mistake is enough when the last one still haunts him.

Asher Baines has secrets of his own. Chief among them, the rare ability of precognition, and the fact that he only took the job at the PPB to keep Calisto safe. Calisto can deny it all he wants, but he is Asher’s fated mate.

When an old foe reappears hellbent on getting Calisto to do the one thing he’s vowed never to do again, navigating their complicated romantic relationship is the least of their problems.

Their future depends on outwitting the villainous O’Reilly, but it’s going to take a lot of spilled secrets, some harsh self-realization, and putting their lives on the line to reach that point.

And even Asher doesn’t know how it’s going to end.

The Big Adios is a fated mates, opposites attract, forced proximity MM paranormal romance featuring an MC who needs to work out how to be less nice if he wants to survive, a man who comes across as having ice in his veins, but is all fire when it counts, a long-dead, sex-obsessed ex-psychic sidekick, help from some familiar faces, and a villain long due their comeuppance.

As this is the third book in the Paranormal Problems trilogy, I would advise reading Deader than Dead or Dropping Like Flies first, or even better both.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF BOOK #3 IN A SERIES SO THERE WILL BE SPOILERS OF SOME DESCRIPTION

Review: 

“The butterfly effect. Change one thing and you risk changing more without meaning to.” 

This is such a good series and The Big Adios did not disappoint. The story about the more quiet necromancer of the PPB, Calisto, and Cade’s enigmatic PA, Asher. I was really looking forward to them and had already pre-ordered the book in anticipation. 

Asher has a reputation as the Ice Man of the PPB – calm, collected, distant. John, book #1, ribs him about it and has around a hundred names and jokes all relating to Asher being cold. The only one that has never met Asher is Calisto. I’d forgotten that and went back to the earlier books to check it out. He’s heard all abut Asher, especially from John, who is never backward in coming forward about how he feels, and John and Asher are poles apart personality wise. 

All the things John seemed to see as flaws in Asher – his steadfastness, his ability to keep his emotions tightly under control, and his forthright honesty, I saw as big pluses. 

Asher is very disciplined. He’s an early riser, 6am. He makes sure he does his daily thirty minutes of Tai Chi in the morning. He doesn’t eat red meat, gluten, he drinks herbal smoothies, but he has a not-so-secret chocolate addiction going on. I mean, pffft, he’s human! He’s also runway-model hot and from money, although we don’t get anything on his family background. It’s more about the nebulous Asher. We’ve never fully known what Asher was until now, a precog. It’s how he’s been able to help out the other necromancers at critical times in the series. He’s had visions about Calisto from a young age, including Baxter. It’s why he took the PA job for Cade. He needed to be close to and keep an eye out for Calisto. His precognition has some strong, painful flashes of information and this book started with a bang when he had one about an attack on the PPB when only Calisto was there. It allows him to stealthily sweep in and get him out unharmed. He knows Calisto is his fated mate, something that Calisto refuses to believe in, even though his other workmates, John, Deader Than Dead, and Griffin, Dropping Like Flies, both have fated mates.   

Calisto has had an “imaginary friend” for nearly twenty years. Baxter. He had to lie about it in the end because it’s one thing to have an imaginary friend when you’re, say, five and another having one as you get older. It hits psych ward territory. Baxter is vey much dead and very much real and he’s been a constant in Calisto’s life. He and Baxter have their moments of banter, also frustration, but they genuinely care deeply for one another. Baxter was murdered and his murderer has never been found. Calisto also comes from a big family. A big, loud family. They get along but they are a handful and when O’Reilly, the series overarching antagonist, sets her sites on Calisto, not only does he need protecting but so does his family. As do the other necromancers who have all had a run in with O’Reilly.

How in the hell is Calisto’s family going to be protected? Asher, that’s how. He has a large, well fortified home and he throws it open to Calisto and his family, because he’s his fated mate even if Calisto doesn’t believe it. He’ll do anything for him. His parents, grandparents, siblings and their partners all come to live at the reserved and regimented Asher’s house. You need real commitment for that kind of inconvenience. At first Calisto’s family are obnoxious and rude, taking liberties with food, wine, and Asher’s house. I was SO glad when Asher put them in their place, because they needed it. The family respected him for it and they settled down. Even became likeable, especially his mum, Mariana, who becomes a huge Asher fan    

This book is nearly 400 pages because H L Day is wrapping up the necromancer’s side of the PPB, the O’Reilly arc as well, and generally tying things from books 1-3 together. There was also the budding romance between Asher and Calisto. Yes, we have the forced proximity trope with Calisto having to stay at Asher’s. In his bed. It wasn’t rushed though, and I felt it developed along nicely. Believably. Day does a good job to make it organic, as organic as a necromancer and a precog can be. 

It was nice to see all the previous couples involved throughout. Nice to see them supporting Calisto, Asher, one another. I can’t say a lot about the plot because to do so is to spoil it. I will say that while Calisto is a necromancer he has more going on. That’s easy to work out because he has Baxter who crosses over between the other side of the grave and this side. Oh, and Baxter was a psychic when he was alive as well. He also lets Calisto know that a girl on the other side really wants to talk to him. Calisto is rather busy and doesn’t think too much about it, but it ties into an earlier book. While the necromancers are initially scratching their collective heads about why Calisto is now at the top of O’Reilly’s list of must haves, you know there are reasons why she’s hellbent on getting her hands on Calisto.

I really enjoyed the bond between Calisto and Baxter. It was well written. They became so entwined and were like siblings, only a sibling the other siblings and parents can’t see. I also liked it when we travelled along to the in-between, or the nothingness, and would have loved more on that side. It was always interesting when Calisto went there or talked about it with Baxter, eventually Asher.  

Even though all three books thus far have had fated mates, there’s been a different spin put on every single one. The romance between Calisto and Asher starts out one-sided, what with Asher letting Calisto know what and how he feels and Calisto denying any fated mate bond. He genuinely doesn’t see it but there is a lot going on in his life and he’s literally only just met Asher. Their relationship grows and Calisto finds his way to the devoted Asher.   

Overall: 

This was a very good book. Enjoyable, it flew by quickly. I’m looking forward to what I suspect is at least one of the next book’s MCs. That will be interesting and well deserved. If you like gay UF, paranormal romance. If you like investigation and suspense, then this could definitely be a series for you. 4.5 Stars!