The Keepers (Alexandra Sokoloff) Books in Order

The Keepers is a shared paranormal romance series set in New Orleans, where the visible city of music, tourists, and old architecture sits alongside an underground supernatural world. Alexandra Sokoloff’s contribution is The Shifters, a story about duty, mistrust, and the danger of letting the wrong kind of magic loose in a crowded city.

The series begins with the idea that certain women are born into a role as Keepers. They are responsible for maintaining peace among supernatural groups, including shapeshifters and other beings who live close to ordinary human life. That is a big job in New Orleans, a place with deep history, a strong sense of the unseen, and plenty of room for old feuds to become present-day problems.

In The Shifters, Caitlin MacDonald is charged with overseeing the city’s shapeshifter community. She has good reasons to be wary of them, so she is not pleased when Ryder Mallory arrives. Ryder is a charismatic shapeshifter and bounty hunter who says he is tracking a dangerous group of entities called Walk-Ins.

Then tourists begin dying from supernatural possession.

Caitlin cannot ignore the threat, even if working with Ryder means trusting someone she would rather keep at a distance. Their investigation moves through the shadowy edges of the city and into a conflict where appearances are unreliable. The romantic element grows out of that uneasy partnership, as both characters have to decide what they can reveal and whom they can rely on.

The books combine paranormal mystery with romance rather than building one long, plot-heavy arc. Readers can pick up The Shifters as a standalone, although the wider Keepers setting adds context about the women chosen to protect the balance between worlds. The central appeal is the mix of a capable heroine, supernatural politics, and a city that makes even a simple night out feel like it could lead somewhere strange.

New Orleans does a lot of the work here.

Sokoloff uses the setting for atmosphere without losing sight of the story’s momentum. There are investigations, dangerous entities, uneasy alliances, and a relationship that has to survive more than ordinary dating problems. If you like paranormal romance with a mystery at its center, start with The Shifters and let the larger Keepers world unfold around it.