Balancing the Scales Books in Order

Balancing the Scales sits in the darker, sharper corner of RJ Blain's supernatural fiction. The series follows Karma Johnson, an investigator whose work on child abduction cases drops her into a world where werewolves, witches, the Inquisition, and ordinary human cruelty all overlap.

It starts hard and stays that way. A kidnapping case forces Karma into survival mode almost immediately, and the books never really forget the cost of that kind of work. She is tough, practical, and not especially interested in playing nice, which gives the series its bite.

These are not the fluffy ones.

What makes the books work is the way Blain balances procedural pressure with paranormal politics. Karma is always trying to save someone, uncover the truth, or keep a bad situation from getting even worse, and the answers usually come with a price. Her connection to Jake Thomas matters too, but the romance grows inside the danger instead of replacing it.

Because the series sits inside the larger Witch & Wolf World, there is a sense that bigger systems are always pressing in from the edges. The Inquisition, pack dynamics, and old grudges all shape what Karma can and cannot do. Even when the plot narrows to one case, the world around it still feels tense and unstable.

If you like RJ Blain when she is darker, more case-driven, and a little meaner to her characters, this is a good place to look. Karma and License to Kill are built around justice, loyalty, survival, and the stubborn refusal to let monsters, supernatural or otherwise, get the last word.