Succubus Dreams (Georgina Kincaid, Book 3) by Richelle Mead (4/5 stars)

This is the third book in the Georgina Kincaid series by Richelle Mead. While I enjoyed this book, I didn't find it as compelling as the second book was. The side characters introduced in this book also weren't as engaging as those introduced in the second book and I really missed Bastien.

In this book Georgina keeps having really vivid dreams the night after she takes a victim; the dreams leave her incredibly drained of life force. As if this oddity isn't bad enough the demon who owns the contract for her soul brings in a succubus named Tawny for Georgina to apprentice. Georgina is trying to cope with all of this and it is creating a stress on her relationship with Seth.

I didn't like this book as much as the last one; I thought Georgina was a bit unfocused through parts of the book. Also the side characters didn't grab me and hold my interest like Bastien did. It seemed like a lot of this book was focused on Georgina's struggles with her daily life, more than any big investigation. Having a bunch of angels in the book was interesting but they flitted in and out of the story so quickly that I didn't think they were developed into characters all that well. I thought Tawny's character was annoying and somewhat unnecessary. My biggest problem was with the ending. I won't give anything away but I thought that multi-book build up between Georgina and Seth was poorly and quickly treated at the end of the book (if you read the book you will know what I mean).

The things I did like were the interludes that told stories from Georgina's past. These short glimpses into Georgina's former aliases were griping, very interesting, and bittersweet. I also liked meeting the demon who took Georgina's soul. I found it very intriguing that Carter again hinted that Georgina's contract with hell might not be exactly what she thinks it is; this is a theme continued from the second book. I also liked the inclusion of Dante as a supporting character; he is somewhat interesting and I hope his role is bigger in future books.

The overall theme of this series seems to be Georgina's struggle against her contract for her soul and I am intrigued to see where this over arcing story leads. I was somewhat disappointed that the mystery and characterization wasn't as engaging as the second book. It was still a good read though and I look forward to the next book; I am still wishing these books had more action in them. They remind me a lot of the Kitty Norville series in their level of action.