SisterGoldenBlog

Enslave Me Sweetly
by Gena Showalter

Pocket, 2006, ebook

Paranormal Romance

.

Eden Black walks among humans, protecting them from the murderous evil of other-worlders who abduct and enslave. And though she appears to be human herself, Eden is an alien, a Raka, distinguished by her golden hair and skin, and gifted with the ominous ability to kill without remorse — and with total accuracy. That is, until the fateful night she has one shot to eliminate her target, a human slaver — and misses.”Failure” is not in Eden’s vocabulary. Neither is “partner” — but that’s what she is forcibly assigned after recovering from her disastrous mission. A sexy, steely-nerved human agent, Lucius Adaire enjoys nothing more than sparking the fury — and rousing the desire — of the fiery female assassin too proud to admit defeat. Locked in an assignment they cannot afford to lose, Lucius and Eden find themselves bound in two high-stakes, heart-pounding games: the sensual web of kill or be killed, and the erotic dance of seduction.

Eden Black is a government sanctioned killer, trained by her father. She tracks and exterminates aliens that are a detriment to humans on Earth. Nevermind that she’s an alien herself –well, her DNA might be, but she was Earth-born and feels it’s her duty to protect her homeland.

When she misses on a particularly important assignment and suffers significant wounds as a result, her father pairs her with a partner, a buff and gruff human named Lucious Adaire. Lucius is very capable and also very infuriating. He’s not about to let her injuries keep her from training with him. Instead, he tests her carefully and mercilessly in the training room. They both end up  very turned on and bruised as a result.

It’s one challenge after another as Eden and Lucius try to one-up each other. The dares and bets and repartee is quite amusing, as is the blunt talk.  There’s no guessing where either one stands as this relationship evolves. For example, when rolling around in her bedroom, the thought of having sex hanging heavily and unspoken between them, Lucius declares

Talk later. Now we fuck.

Cave-manesque, yes. But fun and true to character.

This story is action-packed as Eden & Lucius try to find and punish this alien slaver, without getting caught or worse.

Assessment: Highly recommended.

This is the 2nd book in Gena’s Alien Huntress series.

Notice: To comply with FTC Guidelines, please be aware that I purchased this ebook.

Blue Diablo
by Ann Aguirre

Penguin, 2009, ISBN #978-0-451-46264-0

Paranormal Romance

.

Eighteen months ago, Corine Solomon crossed the border and wound up in Mexico City, fleeing her past, her lover, and her ‘gift’. Corine, a handler, can touch something and know its history –and sometimes, its future. Using her ability, she can find missing persons –and that’s why people never stop trying to find her. People like her ex, Chance.

Chance, whose uncanny luck has led him to her doorstep, needs her help. Someone dear to them both has gone missing in Laredo, Texas, and the only hope of finding her is through Corine’s gift. But their search may prove dangerous as the trail leads them into a strange, dark world of demons and sorcerers, ghosts and witchcraft, zombies –and black magic….

Corine is used to starting over, and eighteen months ago she did just that and traded her high-risk career (using her ‘gift’ to find bad guys) for a rustic second hand shop and anonymity.  And to make it a clean break, she slipped away from her boyfriend, Chance, without a word, while he slept.

Now Chance has tracked her down in Mexico. Not to try to entice her back, but to get her help to find his mother, who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Corine agrees only because she was once so close to his mother, and she is worried something dire has happened.

This story is a fast-paced, high-stakes race to find the missing woman, taking Corine and Chance to Laredo and into the seedy underworld of retired gun dealers, wizards, zombies and even the ‘Hand of God’. Along the way, Corine and Chance explore whether or not they are really ‘over’ and discover that they may not have known each other as well as they had once thought –there’s a whole lot more to the other than they’d realized. And there’s definitely still interest and –dare they think it?  –love, between them.

This novel is not a romance. While Corine and Chance explore their feelings, they are not satisfactorily involved by the end of the novel. In fact, the final line of the novel leaves their relationship very much in doubt.  There’s more time spent to creating a love triangle, with Jesse, another ‘gifted’ person and local police investigator, than in developing things between Corine and Chance.  The love triangle was somewhat reminiscent of Evanovich’s Plum series (between Stephanie, Joe and Ranger), with the heroine bouncing back and forth between point of interest. Clearly, the author is setting up a series here.

Overall a fun read. This is the 1st book in the Corine Soloman series.

Assessment: Highly recommended, though not a romance.  I did pre-order the next in the series from the author, which is due out later in 2010.

Notice: To comply with FTC Guidelines, please be aware that this book was a publisher giveaway to participants of the RWA 2009 National Conference.