Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Seduce the Darkness (Alien Huntress, Book 4) by Gena Showalter (2/5 stars)

This is the fourth book in the Alien Huntress series by Gena Showalter. While I thought the first two books in this series were okay; I really didn't like the third book all that much. Unfortunately this book followed the third book as far as how much I liked it. I did really like her first book in the Extraordinary girl series "Playing with Fire".

Bride is a vampire who lives on the Earth's surface. She has never met another of her kind and has, for some reason, started getting sick when she drinks blood. Devyn we have met in previous books; he is the womanizing Targon that tried to buy Eden in the second book. They meet when Bride recognizes the scent of her old friend on Devyn. Things get more dangerous when Bride takes the disease invested Nolan from Devyn to piss Devyn off. Now Devyn has to find where Bride is hiding Nolan before Nolan's queen arrives from her home planet. Someone is also trying to kill Bride and she doesn't know why.

The plot in general was pretty thin in this book. I don't mind reading books a bit heavy on the romance, but I do like some substantial plot. The plot basically focused around Nolan and trying to get him to tell where and when his Queen would land; in an effort to stop the virus that Nolan is carrying from wiping out all of Earth. There wasn't much to it. Most of the book focuses on Bride trying to piss off Devyn and Devyn trying to get into Bride's pants. It was also a bit weird that there are all of these alien races on Earth and suddenly Showalter has to throw a vampire in there. I mean where did that come from? Was she worried about missing the current "everyone loves vampires" trend in books?

Bride was very immature for a ages old vampire. Mostly she came off as a brat and was not likable at all. Devyn is an admitted womanizer and most of the time was a jerk. I think Devyn's character was supposed to add some humor to the book; mostly though he was just irritating. Devyn's sense of humor reminds of a hormone ridden teenage boy and really wasn't all that funny. I was actually looking forward to reading more about Devyn, but his back story ended up not being all that interesting.

Showalter's story between Devyn and Bride mimicked the storyline of the previous books. Feisty girl meets arrogant alpha male. Male wants girl, girl resists. Girl can't resist anymore, male gets her then realizes he can't live without her. Boring. This could have been forgiven if there was tension between the characters or decent sex scenes. Unfortunately Devyn and Bride didn't seem to have much chemistry and the sex scenes were uncreative and boring.

In addition to all of the above the scanty plotline about the Queen arriving is left wide open. If I had to hedge my bets I would say the next book in the series is about Dallas falling for the alien Queen...but that is just a guess on my part. I guess I will never know, because I don't plan on continuing to read this series. I don't like any of the characters and the world building (as well as the plot) is thin at best. There are better books out there for romance/sci-fi/paranormal. I would suggest Sunny's Monere' series for those interested in steamy scenes with paranormal races.

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