Part of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, book 24.5
First published 2016
Anita Blake arrives at her close friend's wedding expecting celebration, but discovers that joy and pain often intertwine. The bride asks Anita and her partners, wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel, to speak with her thirteen-year-old brother Tomas. The boy recently survived a gunshot wound but has sunk into depression. He refuses physical therapy and faces life in a wheelchair if he doesn't start healing. Tomas has given up hope entirely. Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel decide to share their own stories of survival and recovery. They reveal their scars and explain how they reclaimed their lives after trauma. As they help Tomas understand that wounds don't have to define him, Anita realizes how far she and her partners have traveled from their own dark moments. The experience brings them closer together and helps Anita see that they're ready to make their own formal commitment, including the vampire who shares their unconventional family.
Genres: fiction, romance, family-life, contemporary
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
56 pages · ebook · Penguin Books
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness, physical-abuse