Various Thoughts

I ended up reading this series, by Keri Arthur, accidentally. I had ordered the seventh book of the series (Deadly Desires) without having realized it was the seventh book, I thought it was the first in a new series. So, once I found out that it wasn’t, I had to go and order the first six (Full Moon Rising, Kissing Sin, Tempting Evil, Dangerous Games, Embraced by Darkness, and The Darkest Kiss) as well since I certainly couldn’t go reading the series out of order.

The reason I hadn’t read the series for so long was because I assumed it was trashy romance with a thin-to-nonexistent plot and one-note characters. Thankfully, while it does skirt very close to that line, it doesn’t quite cross it. While the sex is just as gratuitous as one would expect from such a book, it’s not really the main focus and acts more as a background character trait than a driving force.

The books’ are told from Riley’s point of view; one half of a set of half-werewolf half-vampire twins who were kicked out of their pack for being half breeds. Both she and her brother Roan work for the Directorate, a supernatural police force that tries to keep the various supernatural elements in check. Riley is a Liaison, basically just a secretary, while Roan is a full-fledged Guardian. Guardians are the force’s hunter-killers who act as judge, jury, and executioner for supernatural criminals. The series has three main plot-points:

1. Riley becoming a full-fledged Guardian
2. The mutations Riley’s body goes through in response to an experimental drug
3. Riley’s search for her soul mate(s)

There are many different supernaturals in the universe Arthur created. Her werewolves aren’t much different from werewolves elsewhere, except that the lunar cycle acts as overpoweringly strong aphrodisiac for them and they’re extremely sexually active. Vampires are also much like vampires in other Urban Fantasy series, with the exception being that rather than being weak to a wooden stake through the heart, they’re weak against wood period. Even touching something wooden will hurt them. Besides those two main races, there are also shifters of most animal types as well as various slightly more esoteric things that are usually used as antagonists.

It’s a decent enough series, even though I found Riley’s personality a touch grating at times.

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