I did not end up finishing this book, but I got to around 40% before DNFing. Personally just not a book for me, but one I think would be perfect for a different reader. The story focuses on two women, one in her 30s and another in her 40s, who both experience independent supernatural events that they must then work together to figure out what happened. The main reason I DNFed is because I really did not connect with the characters; I prefer reading from characters my own age (in their 20s) and I am someone who really needs to connect with characters to enjoy a book, and I just didn't here. I would recommend this story for anyone interested in stories with supernatural elements, like vampires, and reading from the POV of older characters. I really really do appreciate this book for having older lesbian characters, something fairly absent from books.

I am usually a fan of Missouri Vaun’s work but unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. I’ll chalk this one up to personal preference, as I found the overly religious tones off putting and was unable to get into this book.

Still a fan of this author though and will continue to read her books in the future.

Sadly, I had to DNF the book while reading. I won't be publishing any negative reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or Instagram where it could directly affect the author, but since I have received an ARC and it requires a review, I will be shortly writing what I think. First, the overall story and plot is great. Something that could blow up into a great book. However, the writing is a different issue. The writing felt like staccato, where the points of sentences felt like they were detached instead of a smooth flow of a character's thoughts or stories. It did not draw me into the story, and I sadly had to quit the book.

3 stars
Very confused and conflicted. I don’t like leaving reviews that help neither authors nor potential readers, but it’s really hard to give an opinion about Sacred Ground.
If it’s written with hopes to start a series, then it was a really poor ending to hook people. Sadly, the other option that it was just a bad ending with no justification.
Missouri Vaun has this style of writing that reads like a young adult pretending to have lived. I’d kept this thought to myself not wanting to be disrespectful. She’s a mature established writer within the genre, but something’s off. I’m wondering whether the writer and the editor were on the same page about the story.
You know the feeling when someone you just met starts telling a long story, and it seems like an interesting story, but you don’t care what happens. You’re okay to listen to the end, but you couldn’t care less about what happens to the heroes of said story.
I was reading and not rooting for the characters, I kind of even didn’t care if they died or succeeded. I really didn’t care for the main characters. The supporting characters, even though not many, were a blur too.
At exactly 50% mark I started feeling the story hooking me in, I wanted to know the story, but I still didn’t care for the characters. The plot I liked. Then came the end. The end came as uneventful and unexpected as I just set it up in my review. You were just hit with the fact that it’s the end.
Disappointed because Missouri Vaun is a good writer, but this book is just “whatever.”
It’s a perfect 3 star book. Do I recommend it? Not really. If I wanted to recommend the author to someone, it would definitely be some other book. Do I not recommend you read it? It wasn’t that bad for me to say to stay away.
I’m sorry to say it, but read some other Missouri Vaun book. If you’ve never read her books, definitely do not start with this. If you did, give her another chance.
Love the author, but I didn’t love the book. Honestly, I didn’t even like the book.

Do not recommend. I would’ve DNF if it wasn’t an ARC and do not plan to read the author again.

Frequent “head hopping” of switching perspectives within the same chapter, sometimes even within paragraphs, which reduced connection between the reader and the characters, and removed the potential nuance of unique perspectives between characters or opportunities to show instead of tell or make any inferences.
An egregious use of telling instead of showing throughout (E.g., she smiled. She liked her sense of humor).

The plot was mostly characters traveling between locations or making meals, with short shallow exposition or thinking silently about scriptures related to angels. The couple action scenes were anticlimactic and there was no variation in tone and pacing between character deaths, action, sex scenes, etc. Jordan’s two friends come and go from scene to scene to progress exposition and then leave again.

Both main characters are also magically injured in different ways but experience a lot of identical responses like trances and forgetting and losing chunks of time.
There was an unbelievable romance between two characters that have barely talked and are both suffering from paranormal injuries, and when they are around each other spend most of the time not talking.

Incredibly uncomfortable was the decision to have the only magical artifact in the book, used by demons to try to human sacrifice an infant, and to state its one of the nails used to crucify Jesus which was owned by a specific Jewish priest whose fault it was that Jesus died. It’s implausible that a character could see an old looking ice pick and immediately be like, “That’s the 2000 year old nail that stabbed Jesus,” and an odd choice in a book that has zero other magical items to choose that as the only one mentioned.


Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book. My review reflects my honest opinions. I wish I had enjoyed it.

I am a big fan of urban fantasy as well as sapphic fiction, so I was pretty excited to read Sacred Ground - I don't know why, but I don't find that there are a lot of books that successfully blend the two. Unfortunately, this book didn't really work for me so my quest continues.

Jordan is a Demon Hunter disillusioned with her job as she sees things in black and white, good and evil. Vampires are evil, end of story. But her employer, The Guild, seems to live more in a grey world and does business with some mostly wealthy and powerful vamps. Grace is a writer in town for a story, who meets a woman in a bar and mysteriously ends up in a field near Jordan's cabin with no memory of how she got there.

I think the first thing that got me in the book is that to me, vampires are not demons. I read A LOT of urban fantasy and I know there are probably dozens of people who would debate me on this, but demons are born and come from the underworld. Vampires are humans that are turned. Would have been much better if Jordan was a Vampire Hunter or Slayer. I know it's not a huge deal, but it kinda started the book off on a dubious foot. There was a lot of vague and mysterious biblical quotes, conversations about believing, random events that I assume were supposed to foreshadow something, but it wasn't cohesive and honestly left me confused. And my biggest pet peeve is when characters do things that make no sense. Like when Jordan went out to find Grace's sire - instead of going to the hotel where Grace was, she goes to some random encampment of unhoused people. Or scared Grace deciding, hey let me leave the safety of this cabin and go for a walk in a strange area I've never been. And the characters falling into bed within 24 hours of meeting - I get that there was some soulmate thing going on, but they didn't have time to develop any chemistry so it left me kinda cold. There were some interesting side characters in Jordan's friends Eli and Sam but I wish they had been developed more.

Even after I finished it I still don't really understand what happened or what the characters are doing going forward. It was just a confusing read for me.

Demon hunters, vampires, werewolves - not my usual genre of choice but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
It has action, love, lust - of the blood kind and an underlying story of heaven, hell, good, evil and angels and demons, oh! And a baby!!
The book is well written and moves along at a reasonable pace. If there is a sequel I’ll definitely be reading it!
Thanks to Bold Strokes Books and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review of the book.

Good story. I tend to like anything paranormal with a bit of romance thrown in, and this book had both. Jordan and Grace are the main characters of this book, and both are very interesting. Jordan is a demon hunter and Grace is a ghostwriter who's writing is finally taking off. When these two meet for the first time both are having a difficult time physically. I really liked the beginning of this book, it was fast paced and action packed, but for some reason it became a bit slow and tedious in the middle, maybe a bit slow, and then the story picked up pace towards the end and came too an end to abruptly I thought. But other than that it was a pretty decent paranormal romance.I would recommend, and I look forward to what's coming next from this author.

The concept of the story sounded amazing. However, while I enjoyed the first half of the story, the second part wasn't what I expected. It was a little flat. I would still having said this I still recommend 3.5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for this ARC.

Jordan is a demon hunter and a true believer, but she’s tired of working for the Demon Hunter’s Guild. As her 42nd birthday approaches, retirement is calling. She has just one job left, a job that suddenly goes wrong in a very bloody way. After passing out, she wakes up in her grandfather’s cabin, a safe place because it’s built on consecrated ground. Grace is a ghostwriter who is in San Francisco to interview her newest client. Afterwards, she goes back to her hotel and grabs a drink. A beautiful woman offers her a drink, but things quickly go wrong. Grace wakes up in a shallow grave and follows a light to find Jordan’s cabin. Despite a quickly growing attraction, Jordan is wary of Grace, who might be something Jordan will need to hunt. The two women race against time to find answers.
Missouri Vaun spent the first approximately 30% of the book setting up the premise. The fantasy portion of the book was very intricate, so this was necessary. Readers need to understand the entire mythos and all about Jordan’s worldview. Some of this fell a little short as, at times, it felt like Vaun was more interested in describing the scenery than the reason why Jordan kills demons. The action sequences were well done though. They were both believable and exciting. When Grace is introduced, her side of the story was actually my favorite. I connected with the character and thought that the descriptions of her day were very well done. I was very interested in her storyline all the way until she made it to Jordan’s cabin. After that, though, the story seemed to lose a bit of traction. A lot of things happen in the middle of the book that seem to have no point, mostly revolving around Grace or Jordan randomly wandering off and seeing weird things. Jordan and Grace are suddenly attracted to each other, something that Jordan laments for a while as it is a power of what she is worried Grace might be turning into. Then suddenly, it’s no longer an issue and they are in love. I’m not a fan of instalove, so this might just be my problem and others might enjoy that. The fight scenes right before the end of the book bring back the intensity and excitement. However, the actual ending is fairly anticlimactic and feels rushed.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad story, just one that was perhaps not for me. Others might enjoy it more.

Jordan is a demon hunter but she at point in her life she doesn’t wants to do it anymore. She decided to do one more job for The Guild but she learns they want her to kill an innocent that goes against everything she believes in feeling betrayed she retreats to her cabin. Grace is a ghost writer who finally found her niche she comes to San Francisco to meet someone and winds up waking up in a shallow grave in the woods where she stumbles onto Jordan cabin. Jordan is surprise to see Grace especially when she the innocent she supposed to kill she takes her in but wonder if there’s more to Grace then meets the eye as weeks build so does a attraction but will they both find answers. I like this read good vs evil with supernatural elements with strong woman.


I received an ARC copy of this book from the Publisher via Netgalley and voluntarily leaving my review.

ARC Review of Sacred Ground by Missouri Vaun
* * * * *
A slow burn FF romance with a supernatural twist within our hidden world of hunters and monsters.

Jordan is a good hunter, and will protect the world from evil.
However recently, her job has come with troubles. Lack of trust. Something lingering on the horizon. Something she does not trust. Just when she things she's safe and home free, she's in for a massive shock.
Grace was just living her life. Working, sleeping, breathing, avoiding disappointment. Though, a few strange things have occured of late. It just so happens that the latest is of her waking up in a shallow grave, wandering the darkess, to find safety with a wounded beautiful woman.
Stuck in a cabin, bringing in more secrets then answers, it is truly a question of who can be trusted.
Who are the real monsters?
Who can be saved as the end time approaches?

Not a extremely steamy book that I was slightly hoping for but it does carry some nice tension between Jordan and Grace. We are given villains. We are given friends. We are given people we are rooting for as well as an innocent little hero who we hope gets their happy ending.

From the synopsis and cover, I was expecting a fusion of paranormal romance and horror. This book did not meet that expectation; however, it was a good paranormal sapphic novel. The love between the two main characters was too quick for me. If it had been flushed out more, it would have been more believable. The ending also felt strangely abrupt, and could have used a little more explanation.

would like to thank netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book

demon hunter jordan price has had enough, this will be her last job for her bosses, but can you really retire from being a demon hunter, she hopes so

ghost writer grace jameson loves her job, its taken her a while to find her niche but since then she has built quite a reputation for herself and her latest job in san Francisco should be exciting but finding herself in a shallow grave in a forest miles from nowhere with no memory of how or why leaves her frightened and very much alone, its only the small light she sees in the distance that guides her to a small cabin...

with grace virtually collapsing on her doorstep jordan only option is to let her in. being wounded herself shes not in a great way... strange things are happening and poor grace is about to have her world rocked to its foundations

not a bad storyline some bits of the storyline i enjoyed and could follow...

What does a demon Hunter do when she starts to fall for a woman who has recently been bitten by a vampire.
That’s the question facing Hunter Jordan. The Guild she works for has ordered her to kill innocent Grace and this doesn’t feel right.
She needs to try and save Grace but it may be too late. Does this mean they can’t be together, will Jordan have to kill her, maybe Grace will disappear without a trace. What other scenario is there for these two young women?
Interesting read especially if you enjoy any type of hunter/demon story.

Thank you #netgalley #boldstrokesbooks #sacredground for this ARC

I don’t read a lot of fantasy but with an author like Missouri Vaun I chose to read Sacred Ground. As the blurb describes Jordan Price is a demon hunter. Approaching the age of 42 she decides it is time to retire but agrees to one more job from the guild. It ends up with her injured and recovering at her family cabin. Grace Jameson is a ghost writer and reporter who comes to San Francisco to meet a potential client. She wakes alone in the woods and comes upon Jordan’s cabin seeking help.

I liked the first half of the book with some world building and showing Jordan’s character. I wasn’t really drawn in by the romance or the tension of would Jordan, who sees the world as good or evil, really slay Grace if she turns into a vampire. I did like the action sequences and found them exciting. The ending felt like it was setting up for another story in this world. If it continues on I would read it to see what happens. But I wasn’t totally satisfied if this is where it ends. (3.5 Stars)

I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. From the start, I disagreed with Jordan's black and white view of the world. I was happy to see how she progressed throughout the book to slowly lose that view. The first half of the book was pretty great, I enjoyed the action and the chemistry between Grace and Jordan. However, the second half of the book wasn't as enjoyable to me as the first half. I think the ending of the book was a bit confusing and didn't quite match up to what I was hoping for. Nonetheless, the book is full of action and supernatural entities, with a side of romance thrown in. Though the ending didn't work for me personally, it may work for others. Overall, 3/5 stars.

While I enjoyed the concept and idea of the book.
The pacing and romance felt way too fast that I had to reread some pages just to process it all.

I am an absolute lover of paranormal/romance books so I dived into this one with so much anticipation and enthusiasm. While I did enjoy the story it left me wanting so much more. It had very little action or should I say moving parts and while slower it was more about the telling than showing. I felt like the book was more about setting me up with the history of why's rather than allowing the main characters to come through. In a sense it seemed like we had 5 main characters equally, that's how much the interaction came about. The romance was basically nonexistent as was the action. The feelings I got from reading this book left me feeling as though this was more of a novella setting us up for the actual book. that would dive into everything Again this wasn't a bad story at all the writing was great as was the storytelling but there was so much missing that it left me wanting.

I really loved this book. It kept me interested until the very end. I had a hard time putting it down and finished it quickly, I look forward to reading more from this author, they never disappoint.