This book was very, very dark and I liked it so much better than the first one in the series (Crimson City). Michael is very tortured and a rogue vampire (a human turned into a vampire about 300 years before) who has committed unspeakable acts and is feared and hated by the born and bred vampires. Keeli Maddox is a werewolf whose grandmother is the Grand Dame Alpha and leader of the werewolves. Keeli knows she is a future leader of her people and is trying to improve their plight. Vampires and werewolves live in completely different worlds; vampires live and fly far above the ground, and werewolves inhabit the underground tunnels and sewers. Vampires are wealthy and werewolves are barely surviving. There is such a huge gap between their two peoples that I just could not see any chance of a HEA for these two until the very end. The plot was fast paced and gripping. Michael and Keeli team up to try to discover who is behind a rash of murders whose victims carry the scent of both vampire and werewolf. The characters were well drawn and the atmosphere was dark and intense. I'm beginning to really like vampire romance but I'm a wimp about some things:) But one scene in the nightclub made me gag. I loved how Michael falls in love with Keeli at first sight. She is much more wary of him and takes a lot of convincing so there was lots of sexual tension. The love scenes are hot when they finally get together. (Grade: B+) ( )

I write and read Dark Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, and these genres suffer as much as all the others as far as a dearth of diversity goes. In paranormal romance, there is the amazing Marjorie M. Liu. I fell completely in love with her when she was writing on the Crimson City series, and I'm working my way through the rest of her work now! She is awesome.

Marjorie M. Liu rocks my socks. I've devoured her books.

This isn't my normal genre, to be fair. I'm trying to research books for a non-reader friend. But I read the author's blog, and she's great. ( )

A female werewolf, who becomes the Grand Dame Alpha wolf, falls in love with the Vendix, the vampire who carries out death sentences upon other vampires for the Prime Council.

PACING: fast; very quick read; CHARACERIZATION: most important aspect; focus on intertwined characters; roguish; strong secondary characters; motivating tertiary characters; sympathetic; meotional involvement; reader identification; introspective; STORYLINE: character-centered; issue-oriented; multiple plot threads; resolved endings; plot twists; thought provoking, though to a lesser degree than Crimson City; layered; allegorical; magical realism; paranormal; sexually explicit; FRAME: bleak to bittersweet; hard-edged; magical; melodramatic; philosophical, thought to a lesser degree than Crimson City; suspenseful; dark; chilling; urban; stark; conversational ( )

Another really hard to rate and review book. This runs in parallel, timewise, with Crimson City, yet the events hardly interact at all.

The start of the book is terrible, particularly when reading just after Crimson City, because it's so clearly the same Romeo and Juliet theme of apparently doomed love. However, part way through the process it suddenly picks up a life of its own and becomes more compelling and the end is well developed with some lovely twists and turns, as well as some fairly predictable bits.

It wouldn't be top of my "to read" pile - anything by this author or in the series, but I wouldn't run screaming if it was the only thing around to read. ( )