Funny and entertaining. ( )

Egalley thanks to Carina Press
This is very much a paranormal chick-lit novel, despite the bodies dropping right, left and centre. It's lighthearted, funny and entertaining, and it was a pleasure to read it.

Zoey is what I like about chick-lit. She is flamboyant, geeky and very eccentric redhead wedding planner. She is also an empath who ends up absorbing feelings of everyone else around her.

So when one morning she gets out of bed and finds a closet monster in her kitchen making her a fresh cup of coffee with home-baked muffins, she is terrified but charmed just as well (see: muffins). This is the same monster who terrified her as a child, but now his wife cheated on him with a bridge troll and he needs to stay away from his own house for awhile.

Okay... Talking to Maurice, Zoey finds out that her own mother used to run a shelter for monsters and everyone loved her, now it's Zoey they come to. Our girl blinks and finds herself surrounded by monsters, her house is sparkling and magically protected... but at the same time she attracts attention of one greedy incubus who thinks of her like all-you-can-eat buffet, and soon her clients start dropping dead like flies, her business partner feels ill and a gorgeous paramedic Riley can't stop bumping into her.

Above all looms the wedding of the year, which can make or break her business, and Zoey is determined to succeed even if both mother of the bride and her incubus try to kill her.

Funny, warm and lively, I'm definitely recommending it to anyone looking for lighter paranormal romance/comedy.

( )

This is clearly a first novel, but it has some nicely creative world building. I can say that the subsequent books in the series improve.

Like many first novels, the author tends to rush and needs to do more showing and less telling. Still the characters are interesting and the plot is creative. The setup for the future books is strong, but it reads okay as a stand-alone.

Worth reading and worth owning in the context of the entire series. ( )

I rarely request ARCs through NetGalley, but I decided to make an exception for this book. And I am glad I did.

This book has everything I want in an Urban Fantasy. Familiar fantasy races, but with enough twists for them to feel brand new. And then there are the Closet monsters. I loved Maurice, with his fretting and cooking. What's more, all the twists and the reasons for them made a lot of sense.

This was the first time I read about a wedding planner, but it was intresting to get an insight in how much job it is. I loved following Julie's struggle to adapt to the changes in her life. From the closet monster in her kitchen, to the fact that she has a gift. But it wasn't just that. I loved the snarkiness and the quiet humor that Julie had, and how much she cared about her clients, even though some of them annoyed her.

The plot was intriguing, and filled with plot twists that took me by surprise, yet made sense when they happened. I loved how the stakes gradually increased through the book. From the first time Julie and Sebastian met, until the last confrontation. I also liked that Julie didn't expect anyone else to solve this. She faced down Sebastian several times. When it comes to the romance between Riley and Julie, it was cute and I am curious how it will affect the two of them in the upcoming books.

What I didn't like was that even though a lot of the plot twists took me by surprise, I had a hunch about who the final victim was for a long time. But that is the only thing that mars the book, at least for me.

But I definitely plan to buy the next book in the series, since I liked this one a lot. ( )

MONSTER IN MY CLOSET is a different kind of urban fantasy story. The heroine, Zoey Donovan, does not kick butt in the traditional UF sense. She doesn't have any martial skills, superpowers, or major supernatural abilities. Instead, Zoey is a quirky, empathic wedding planner who didn't know she was an empath until the early pages of MONSTER IN MY CLOSET. I usually prefer a butt-kicking heroine like Kate Daniels or Gin Blanco but Zoey really won me over with her offbeat sense of style, guts, and smarts. She may not have a lot of muscle but she makes up for the lack with the other aspects of her personality.

That being said, I hesitated to pick up MONSTER IN MY CLOSET at first because of the unusual title and cover. I hemmed and hawed for a while but, having read the book, I think the cover and description perfectly captures the spirit and plot of the novel. They let the reader know that the Monster Haven series is not your average urban fantasy, which is completely true. So if you're waffling about whether or not to give MONSTER IN MY CLOSET a shot because of these reasons I urge you to read the excerpt linked below and see if you like Zoey and R. L. Naquin's voices. I'm a big fan now that I've tried the series out.

Another aspect of MONSTER IN MY CLOSET that I quite liked is its originality. R. L. Naquin has populated her series with some atypical supernatural beings. Can you think of another book that features a closet monster? Or a pygmy dragon or skunk-ape? I can't. :) And that monster? His name is Maurice and he's a thoroughly charming closet monster who ends up becoming Zoey's housekeeper and guide through the supernatural. In fact, MONSTER IN MY CLOSET has a fantastic cast of supporting characters. I was really taken with Andrew and Sarah, two of Zoey's human friends and the Big Bad was suitably menacing, if not truly scary. He was definitely unsavoury, particularly towards the end, and you'll be rooting for Zoey and friends to get rid of this particular demon.

MONSTER IN MY CLOSET is the first in a six book series, according to the author's website, which makes me happy since I really enjoyed my first foray into Zoey's world. I'm quite excited to see what she has in store for us in POOKA IN MY PANTRY, the next book about Zoey and her madcap life.

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