Sangre Monte. Blood Mountain. The site of the six hundred thousand acre ranch owned by the very wealthy and very unhappy Evans family. Their new home on the mountain will soon be the site of a death. It’s up to Game Warden Jodi Luna to discover what sort of wildlife is responsible. The kind outside…or inside?

A political assignment brings Jodi to the ranch. She is to supervise the Evans’ hunting forays at the request of the governor. She is accompanied by her teenage daughter Mila to keep her out of trouble. She’ll find it at the ranch. She discovers Adler and Bryce Evans arguing violently while armed with crossbows. Then Bryce storms out into a blizzard and disappears. Jodi needs to find him and keep Mila separated from her new boyfriend, teenaged Sterling Evans. If this sounds complicated, it is. Trapped by the blizzard, Jodi must deal with the warring brothers, a supermodel with secrets, an angry, Bible quoting neighbor, a pet bear and more.

Blood Mountain, the second in a series, is easily read as a standalone thriller. Alisa Lynn Valdés describes the remote, atmospheric location lyrically. The characters here are so vivid that you feel you would recognize them on the street. Adler might be a little over the top but he is a sociopath. Claudia and Dakota are charming as is heroic young Mila. I can’t wait for the next in this excellent series! 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and Alisa Lynn Valdés for this ARC.

Really enjoyed the book from start to finish. Author wrote this with great pace. Blood Mountain is now one of my top books of the year for sure. Loved every second of this book.

Blood Mountain is the second title in the Jodi Luna series by Alisa Lynn Valdés. I devoured the first title, Hollow Beasts, and was so excited for the opportunity to review Blood Mountain in exchange for an ARC from #NetGalley.

I find Valdés writing to be poetic without being overbearing about it. Her words flow together and weave such beautiful imagery while not getting lost in the plot. As soon as I opened #BloodMountain I began highlighting. I was hooked right from the very first paragraph.

Our FMC is Jodi Luna, Game Warden and she finds herself shipped off to a hunting ranch owned by the richest citizens in town... in several towns actually. She didn't want to be there, but her boss is unhappy with her job performance and due to political glad-handing requires her to be there for a hunting trip. What happens next? Why MURDER of course! And a blizzard, power outages, suspicion, and a surprising amount of unrestrained aggression on all parties.

While I did love this title, I did not love it as much as the first in the series. Blood Mountain reminds me of Agatha Christie here. Specifically 'And Then There Were None', and follows many similar mystery tropes. Think Arcadia/Black Sheep/Butler Did it/Closed circle etc. The ending felt rushed, and while it definitely left an opening for further books in the series, it left me as the reader feeling a little letdown. It was missing closure in my opinion.

So overall the author I give a resounding 5 stars to for her ability to create imagery with her words, but Blood Mountain fell flat for me and I'll leave it with a 3.5/4 stars. I will likely read more, but I also expected more. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to review this book as an advanced reader #ARC for #NetGalley. Thank you again!

Many thanks to both Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of Blood Mountain. This book is #2 in the Jodi Luna series and the expected publication date is October 16, 2024.

And inside the snowy confines of this rustic hideaway, everyone is fair game ... for a killer.
Just imagine being trapped by a blizzard with an unidentified serial killer!

I didn't enjoy Blood Mountain as much as I did Hollow Beasts, probably because this one was a little heavy on religion, particularly Catholicism. I still loved Jodi and her two daughters, and the Goat Lady was quite interesting to read about. (Maybe she should have been named the Bear Lady?) As in the previous book, Mila seemed older than her age but I was still charmed by her.

In my opinion, Blood Mountain can be read as a standalone. Prepare yourself, though. This book has lots of mystery and suspense!!

I was unaware this was part of a series. I was intrigued by the murder mystery but this ended up not being what I expected. I couldn't Gey into this story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

#2 in the delightful entry in the Jodi Luna series as and her youngest daughter babysit a rich family governor's during an Elk hunt. It is not long before Jodi and stumbles along the corpse of someone with the group who was murdered. It is quickly determined that Elk are not the animals being hunted that weekend.

Excellent novel, but they need to replace the editor. Somehow no one catches an error that I immediately noticed, that the killer is hog-tied at one point, and yet he "reached up to feel a head wound," Things like that, which I seldom encountered at least in published books (and I hope they remove before they publish this one, pull me right out of the story, so I had to deduct one star (at least for the version I read).

Until next time, remember to pay attention to details, they are important.

I am enjoying this series and was happy to receive a ARC through NetGalley.

This one has it all. A luxurious hunting lodge in the beautiful New Mexico mountains, a dysfunctional rich family with mucho problems, a former poet turned game warden sent to lead them on an elk hunt and her 15 year old daughter, wise beyond her years. What could possibly go wrong?

A blizzard for one and a cranky old woman who resents the family’s incursion on her home, plus did I mention she has a pet bear named Charlie? Wrap all this up with a murder in the family, tie it up neatly with a no electricity, no cell coverage bow and you have a hunt on your hands. But exactly who or what are we hunting?

I really enjoyed the daughter of the main character. Smart, funny, spunky and very capable of handling difficult situations, I felt she made this story. I hope she figures prominently in future books.

I was really taken with the first of Jodi Luna's story. She is a very cool character with a complex backstory and a strong sense of family and family obligations. I love how she was a professor and became a game warden. All this, and she's badass. The first novel was very well written and developed. This novel, the 2nd in the series, was also very well written and developed, but it had a bit of a hard time getting going. The whole concept was a little far-fetched, but this is not a concern of mine, it is a detective novel and there are a lot of moral ambiguities sprinkled throughout the book. My biggest issue was the pacing. I love the character (she may be my new Kate Burkholder), but getting to the point where all the action took place was a bit of a struggle, for me.

Now, once we got to the story's action, well, I was all in and it was great. The twist was a little bit on the nose, but it was a nice development and I appreciated how things were told. I love how awesome Jodi's daughter is. Basically, this book is a super real winner and I loved it. The beginning just needed to be a little faster-paced. Also, the ending was great. Dealing with more of that morality and the issues therein... builds a compelling next installment, that's for sure.

Having only been serving as game warden in the rural Rio Trucas County, New Mexico for six months, officer Jodi Luna is still trying to navigate the ins and outs of her new position, so when her boss tasks her with overseeing a hunting trip for the influential Evans family, she does so begrudgingly, but knows it may be her only shot to prover herself. Plus, it gives her the chance to spend some time with her daughter, that is, if she isn't sneaking off with her boyfriend, who happens to be the youngest member of the Evans clan. Jodi is one tough cookie and can handle the abrasive attitudes of the Evans men, their seemingly crazy and armed neighbor, and even a few bears if she has too, but getting trapped in the mountains with two dead bodies? That might just bring her to the edge.

This is a gripping thriller right from the opening scene. The author does a wonderful job throughout the book of building suspense while also creating vivid and immersive backdrops and expertly detailed characters. This reads like an episode of your favorite crime drama, and it left me wanting to tune into more! It became evident a short way into the book that there was a book prior to this one, with certain scenes referencing a past incident. These nods were woven in nicely and made this easily readable as a stand-alone novel. If anything, these scenes have me wanting to go back and read the first book as the incident that is harkened back to sounds just as gripping as the events of this novel.

I think anyone who likes suspenseful crime novels will enjoy this book. I look forward to seeing more from this series and will definitely be adding Hollow Beasts (Book #1) to my TBR,.

Blood Mountain by A.L. Valdes, published by Thomas & Mercer, is the second book in the Jodi Luna Series.
Every book , while interconnected can be read as a stand-alone. The previous book is Hollow Beasts.
Jodi Luna is still adjusting to her new life as game warden. The former professor keeps people at a distance when the brother-in-law of a friend goes missing.
She ventures into the wild and soon she learns that there is more to investigate than a simple case of getting lost.
A mystery thriller of its finest, a wonderful read, 5 stars.

Wow that was definitely a bit different from what I normally read! But great book! This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, intrigue, action, murder, serial killer, mystery, revenge, a great who done it, and some crazy twists and turns! I loved the characters they were all very interesting! The storyline was very interesting also and kept me glued to my Kindle! I highly recommend reading this book as it was well worth reading! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

This is the second book in the series but I had no trouble jumping in. I found the story to be engaging and I read it in a day. There were a lot of characters and a few times I got confused about who was who. I will definitely read more books from this author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas & Mercer through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you, Thomas & Mercer.