Sergeant Duncan O'Connor isn't really in great shape for getting called into a murder investigation, having had a few drinks too many in honor of his ex-wife's new marriage, but he does his duty. The victim is an exotic dancer and kept mistress, and is currently missing her heart. Said heart is missing without any visible injuries. It had to be a Freak.

Freaks are humans with extra abilities and are feared by the "normal" humans. Feared until they are needed. Callie Brown is a diviner one who can speak to the recently departed and get information that the police could use. She had been abandoned as a baby and raised in the safety of Vahalla.

She and Duncan have worked together before and have an interesting affect on each other. He wants to break through her serenity and she ... well she just doesn't want to get too close. A lot of humans are bigoted about Freaks. But when something happens to her when she is in the victims mind, Duncan is drawn into her world. A world that he honestly wasn't very far from himself and gets himself in deeper ... to protect and be with her. They will have to work together because the world is about to come crashing down on everyone. It's not just a single dead woman ... it is an evil beyond imagination.

BORN IN BLOOD is the fascinating, action packed beginning to author Alexandra Ivy's new The Sentinels series. The reader is dropped into the action from page one and it is non-stop with a number of twists and surprises to the very end. Duncan is an amazing character, with a strong touch of the little boy pulling the little girls pigtail for attention, as if he is unsure how to get close to Callie or if he should. At times he is overbearing but the more you read the more he grows on you. I loved Callie, her outer serenity is more than a façade, she accepts who she is and doesn't apologize for it. She's a fighter and survivor and that comes in handy in this story. The secondary characters are just as amazing, Callie's guardian sentinel Fane, Wolfe the enigmatic leader of the sentinels, and her best friend Serra who has a thing for Fane, fit into this new world perfectly and have a story of their own that needs to be told. I have read all of Ms. Ivy's Darkness series and now I cannot wait for more of this one.