A retirement home in the middle of nowhere has something weird going on. First, a resident claims there are ghosts lurking about. Then, all the residents are dead. Carbon monoxide poisoning is the reason given. But for Cèsar this doesn’t sit right, so against the wishes of his co-worker Suzy, and his boss, Fritz, Cèsar goes poking around with the elusive necrocognitive witch, Isobel. Yet, when they arrive at a memorial service for the seniors, Isobel refuses to talk to the dead and freaks out like Cèsar has never seen her do before.

Shadow Burns still has the same self-deprecating lead, Cèsar, at the helm. I like how he’s consistent, so I feel like I’m getting to know him well. He’s a nerd who loves fantasy novels, Green Lantern, and Firefly. He still lives in the same dumpy apartment because he doesn’t appear to have whatever it is in people that make them get a house, a family, a routine. And he’s still a jock-type who talks about his muscles, though he hasn’t earned them; as a witch, Cèsar makes potions to bulk up. On top of that, he’s not even a great witch. Most of his skill comes from intuition instead of study, the normal route for most witches. Basically, he’s a delightful mix of stereotypes.

And yet there’s an undercurrent in this novel that prevents readers from knowing deeply. Much like the Descent series, so much is kept from readers, but not in an annoying way. We don’t get to know everything about people right away in real life, nor do we in S.M. Reine’s books. Thus, while this Preternatural Affairs series reads largely more snarky and playful, we’re getting a dose of the seriousness that drew me in so deeply to the Descent books. A lot of that comes from Cèsar’s and Fritz’s relationship, which I did get more of! But we still need more, which Cèsar knows: “This guy whose life was tethered to mine, whom I thought I knew pretty well, yet actually knew nothing about at all.”

For the next book: The synopsis tells us the next book is all about Isobel and how she originally met Fritz, which is exactly what I want after the ending of Shadow Burns.