Bea Tanaka is tired of living in the shadow of her older sister's superhero celebrity and wants a turn to step into the spotlight as a superhero in her own right. Just as she's about to make her plea for the umpteenth time, stranger than usual things start happening -- including what Bea thinks might be attempts by their deceased mother to contact them.

This book is part of a series and while it isn't strictly necessary to read the previous two titles to understand this one, I think it's beneficial. Each title in the series so far has followed a bit of a pattern but each also allows one of the main female characters to take a turn as the first-person narrator and thus have more of a focus on her thoughts, feelings, etc.

Unlike the last two books that pretty much followed on each other's heels timewise, this book has skipped ahead several years. Bea is now 22 instead of a teenager, which makes sense for a variety of reasons. However, she is still very much in that awkward 'trying to figure one's self out' phase. To flesh out Bea's life a little more, a new character Leah -- and her companion dog Pancake -- are introduced, along with a new job at a bookstore. Sam, a character seen very briefly in the last book, is predictably made more of a character -- and a love interest for Bea -- here.

While I enjoyed the main story on the whole fairly well with its interesting twist about the Tanaka women's mother possibly still being alive after all but stuck in a supernatural Otherworld, it felt like this book had so much more buildup than the previous two titles. It was much longer than the other titles but it really didn't feel like it needed that much. While time may have jumped ahead quite a bit, we already know who Bea is as well as the vast majority of the other key players. It took me a while to get into this particular book but once I did, it took its hold. I'll probably move on to the next book in the series and see how that goes. ( )

I don't jive with Bea. Most of the time while reading this I was annoyed with her.

On the other hand I also kept reading because I was enjoying myself. ( )

This is a sweet (and often funny) story about love, loss, and hope... told over the backdrop of a San Francisco where superheroes try to keep demons from taking over the city.

It's a smidge closer to YA than the previous installments in the series, but only because Bea is younger than Evie or Aveda were when they had their books. (Honestly, I think this fits New Adult really well, especially given how often Bea has to tell the others she's "not a baby" anymore.) However, there is still plenty of heat between the MC and her love interest, as fits the rest of the series. I actually really liked the romance in this book; it fit both characters really well, and neither partner has any obvious advantage over the other.

I also liked the blend of action and introspection in this book. It's a great combination of Bea dealing with internal and external conflicts, and I love the ways where they overlap. In that sense I feel this is the strongest book in the series yet. ( )

Yep, definitely still not a teen book, although the cover does a good approximation of a teenish sort of cover. Don't be trucked. This is an adult book all the way.

This time the book is being told by Bea, Evie's little sister and one of the found family of Evie who has powers, but isn't an official 'super hero' yet. She's trying though.

Of course, as usual there's a new demon threat on the horizon. This time it may or may not have anything to do with the portal in the Pussy Queen store. and now there's a lot of 'interesting' things goin on at the book store where Bea works, It's Lit.

We get to meet Sam and Leah, Bea's best friends, as well as Pancake (a dog). Sam and Bea's story was okay, and I really liked Leah's story, but, I wanted to see more of it instead of hear about it. I felt the same about the Rose/Lucy story too. I just wish that we'd actually gotten to see their whole story. We know so, so much about everyone from Sam to Bea to Evie, Aveda, and most of the other characters, but, we only seem to have been told (not shown) stuff about Leah/Rose/Lucy/Nicole. It's annoying, and mars an otherwise amazing series of books.

I think that this book did take me a little time to get into this one than the previous ones because at the start Bea just really annoyed me, but, by the end I think I definitely liked her more.

I hope there might be another one (after all it is listed as a series, heh), but, if not, this one (and the previous two) were great rides.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Berkley Publishing Group. ( )