Rating: 4.5🌈
Rayn’s journey has been one of the most haunting, and tormented of all of the characters to date in this immersive paranormal world where an Arcana virus swept across the world altering the human landscape forever. A large portion of the world’s population perished, others were left altered by the virus, becoming orcs, witches, weres of various species, zombies, vampires and other otherworldly beings. Quickly consigned to hospitals, or institutions or worse when society and families couldn’t accept them or the virus transitions were physically agonizing and long to take hold.
By book 11, Humans only rights groups, not just the extremists, are fighting to remove the rights the Nids have gained. It sounds very familiar. And the fear and ugly hate groups, the crimes against the Nids going unpunished, is so well written that it feels lifted from events today.
Rayn,older and working as a touch psychic in alongside Ward and Mason in BTV is still very much the under socialized, on the spectrum person he’s been even as he’s developed physically. His childhood, and its accompanying deep trauma and abuse along with his lack of knowledge of his own powers, still makes Rayn an introverted, emotionally awkward person. He’s trying to get people to accept him as adult and not as a fragile little traumatized boy most who know his history see him as.
Avery’s crafting of Rayn is immaculate, he is real in his skin, his efforts to navigate through the communication blocks and issues between Raj and himself are emotionally tough and difficult and feel absolutely credibly raw. Hart plays a great supporting role here, once again revealing himself to be a fine, intelligent caring man.
Raj has been a strong presence in the series and his involvement with Rayn starts in the previous book. But the issues between him and Rayn have been building and his extraordinary overprotective nature is a huge problem.
It’s addressed and seems to be an aspect that he needs to work through. Do I believe that it’s resolved? Not sure. I never know with Avery, maybe it is or maybe it isn’t. There’s one more book in Rayn’s trilogy and the human only faction element has just gotten more complicated and suspenseful by the end of this very amazing story.
I highly recommend reading it but it’s not something that you can read by itself. Each one should be read in the order that it was written for characters and overall plot development.
Amazing series and fantastic characters. One of the best paranormal group of storylines I’ve read. Certainly one that has the most impact on current events.
Series couples to date (not standalone and have to be read in the order they are written):
Highly recommended.
Beyond the Veil Series :
💀Ward’s story (1-3):
The Ghost in the Hall
The Boy in the Locked Room
The Skeleton Under the Stairs.
💀Hart’s story (4-6):
The Dog in the Alley
The Bones in the Yard
The Elf Beside Himself
💀Seth’s story (7-9):
The Turning of the Tables
The Badger in his Burrow
The Past in the Present
💀Rayn’s Story (10-12)
The Diamond in the Rough
The Rut in the Road
The Rock and the Hard Case (coming 2026)
💀Dan’s Story (13-15) Coming 2026-2027
Buy link
Book 11 of 11: Beyond the Veil
Blurb
I was finally getting my life together—I had a job, a boyfriend, was working on my college degree, and was learning to control both my magic and my psychic abilities. I’d reconnected with my sister and I was starting to think that I might actually be able to have something approaching a healthy adult life, even if it wasn’t going to be an even remotely normal one.
And then I hit a rut in the road.
Or, rather, people started hitting other people. What started as a single hit-and-run had become several of them, all targeting Arcanids, and I was being asked to get into the mind of the killer… although I’m starting to think that maybe there’s more than one. Tracking one killer is hard enough, but when you think there might be several, things get a lot messier.
Especially when your boyfriend is a federal agent who just got called in to take over the case. It’s the first time we’ve worked together since we started dating, and it’s definitely taking a toll. I don’t want to have to choose between keeping him and solving the murders.
July 30, 2026
Language
English
Print length
430 pages
Book 11 of 11
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 