Boundary Lines - Melissa F. Olson
“Boundary Lines” continues straight on from where “Boundary Crossed” left off.

Lex, a Boundary Witch who has just come in to her death-magic powers, is working for Mavin, the local Vampire leader, in order to protect her baby niece, who is a null, from the Old World powers who would exploit her.

You got all that, right?

No?

Then read the first book before you read this one.

In “Boundary Lines”, Lex’s world is made more complicated when something goes wrong with the magic in Denver, making witches twitchy, pushing vampires into public feeding frenzies, compelling werewolves to invade and unleashing something big, bad and decidedly icky on the world.

There’s a good plot here and, unlike Scarlett Bernard the female lead in the earlier books, Lex is right in the middle of the action: using fists, guns, swords, knives and even fragmentation grenades to kick ass.

The only thing Lex seems not to use is magic, at least not for combat. Lex’s magic is only used to let her interview the not so evil dead. This surprised me a little and left me a bit puzzled. Why have a supernatural heroine who solves all her problems as if she was ex-special services?

“Boundary Lines” was a fun read, with some strong scenes but overall it felt more like an episode in a TV series than a novel that stood up on its own.

I enjoyed learning more about Lex’s past and meeting a Thaumaturge or wonder worker focused on healing. I also liked the scene with the Peller sisters in the cake shop but those parts stood out because they were about the only places with real emotional content.

The rest of the book was action packed and full of twists in the plot but when the resolution was reached, I didn’t really care because I hadn’t become engaged with the characters enough to be worried about what would happen to them.

This is still an above average Urban Fantasy series but I think it has the potential to be outstanding if the characters are given a bit more depth.