SAVANNAH SACRIFICE warns that there are vulture shape shifters out there, and they look just like people. While real vultures are useful scavengers, one of these shifters tries to steal a lady's bag at an airport. Starling Jackson's just flown in from Vegas and she's not in the mood for chatter, so she goes in pursuit and alerts security. A friend, Jasper, helps her apprehend the thief whose Roman nose, greasy hair and hard eyes hint at his actual character. Starling's got her goods - for what they're worth - but was this coincidental or is she being followed? She's got a mission, to find some ancient books, and as a long-lived swan nymph she can see the true nature of the Catharterians or vultures... some of the time.

Starling uses the kind of feminine wiles that she'd sworn off in order to get access to a safe-deposit box. The contents, placed there by a relative, are the reason she's come to Savannah. Jasper, who is investigating the vultures, has developed a prickly masculine protectiveness, and the bank manager asking to date Starling doesn't help matters. Starling is also troubled by hearing spirit voices, which some think is a gift, but she'd do anything - or take any medicine - to make them stop. With a dwindling population, the vulture shifters are desperate to get hold of a pharmacological cure for infertility - which they believe Starling holds.

Danica Winters brings new characters and situations into her urban fantasy series, so you don't need to have read the earlier books. We get to walk in a cemetery amid trees dripping with Spanish moss, to scent flowers, swampland and boiled peanuts. By turns modern thriller and claustrophobic ghost story, this adult romance is an intriguing and bittersweet read. My only complaint is that in a shifter series we do expect to see the characters shift form. Danica won the 2013 Paranormal Romance Guild's Book of the Year Award and SAVANNAH SACRIFICE is sure to make her many more friends.

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