In Forever Crossed A. Leigh Jones adeptly straddles multiple genres to create an exciting tale. She crosses a romance novel with detective fiction and with an alternative reality setting that includes witches, vampires, and wereleopards. The author's greatest achievement is in creating a vibrant lead character, Olivia Peters, who captures the mystery of believability and raises the work above the cliches of genre.

The author reimagines the sleepy southern city of Raleigh North Carolina as a place where vampires are regular citizens. However, a vampire turf battle leads to a series of murders that upsets the community.

The romance is between Peters, a victim of a wereleopard attack as a child, and Luka, the leader of the local wereleopard clan. Can the erotic feelings he stirs up in her overcome her childhood fear? Her interactions with his pack of wereleopards in human form are delightfully portrayed. Their mixture of human emotions and animalistic senses as she is attracted to their leader and how she relates to each of them is very well done.

It is the detective who comes out as the strongest part of Peters' character. She is called in to solve the murders, but the struggle for control of the vampire community hints at a more complex story. Yet ultimately, this is set aside (for a sequel?) and the romance novel gains the upper hand. ( )

Olivia Peters is a Bereavement Counselor, she works for a funeral home named Forever Crossed. Briefly, a bereavement counselor sees the the circumstances of a person's death and comforts the survivors (or helps the homicide investigation). She is also the only known survivor of a wereleopard attack to not either die or become a shapeshifter herself. Her boss assigns her to work with the ruler of the Vampires, Antonio. He is trying to find a rogue Vamp who is killing vamps and humans in his territory of the Triangle. Coincidently, she is also retained by the local police to investigate the same case. The shaman of the local wereleopards was the latest victim, so their Ra Jahn is also involved and a mutual attraction is formed.

There is a lot going on in this book. I found Olivia to be a very likeable character. The book is obviously a start to a series but we have yet to hear from this author again. ( )