Dancing with the Devil

I've been wanting to check out this series for a while, so when Netgalley had this book for review because a new book in the series is coming out soon I snapped it up.

I'll say right up front, this book, even though it is urban fantasy, definitely has more of a paranormal romance vibe at times. Since I don't particularly love the meant-to-be romantic trope, those parts weren't for me, but YMMV.

What I did like was the overall plot. While reading the opening scenes, I thought they would be nothing more than that, opening scenes. Something to introduce me to the characters but nothing I needed to particularly care about. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Every bit of this book mattered to the plot. Nothing was solved or healed or fixed until show more the very end. And that I loved. That's what is going to have me checking out the next book in the series.

(Provided by publisher) show less

Back when I really enjoyed Laurell K. Hamilton's books, several people highly recommended this one as a read-alike. It took me a while to track it down, but it's been sitting in my TBR pile ever since.

Psychic private investigator Nikki James has been hired to find a missing teenage girl. She finds her, but she also finds herself in the middle of someone else's hunt: vampire Michael Kelly is hunting the evil vampire that the teenager's in thrall to.

It's a great conflict: that vampire had killed his brother, and Michael intends to stop him at any cost, even if it costs the teenager her life--she'd made her choice, and she's probably too far gone, anyway.

Nikki has lost one person to the monsters, however, and she's not about to lose show more another, even if it makes the fight harder.

Because of her psychic powers, Nikki isn't as susceptible to vampires, and between that and her strength and goodness, Michael finds her irresistible.

I absolutely loved the first half of the book. Then it kind of fizzled. Michael, rather than being an equal partner, became more ineffectual, with Nikki as his savior. I don't like the alpha-male-saving-the-helpless-female plots, but I don't like the reverse, either. He wasn't a wimp, but he didn't hold his own, either. And then there was the ending...

This book is a perfect illustration of what I mean when I say that I don't require romance in my books (which really should be obvious), but that if there is a romance, I expect it to make sense. The ending (I'm not going to get into details, but I'm not going to sidestep the issue, either--I think the warning is more important than completely avoiding spoilers here) feels artificial and abrupt, as if it were designed either to thumb its nose at romance readers, or to entice readers to pick up the next book. If it was the latter, it failed--with this reader, at least. It's not the lack of a happy ending. I've loved plenty of books without HEA endings. And it's not that the ending was a surprise--I love surprise endings. It's that the book made a promise, and waited until the very end to reverse direction. Those good surprise endings--you're surprised, but it makes sense, and if you look back, you can see the hints in that direction even if you didn't notice them at the time. That wasn't the case here.

So, instead of discovering a new series I expected I'd love, I got pissed off, and I won't be looking for more. show less

While the concept of this book was actually to my liking, a psychically gifted PI being caught in the sights of an evil vampire and a vampire hero comes to her rescue, I found the execution was a bit off. Finding the positives to point out has been difficult for me because every instance had both pro and con to it.

What Worked: Our heroine, Nikki, is both determined and strong....yet flawed. This will allow for future character development....and believe me, this character needs some because although I've listed Nikki as a plus she was also the biggest disappointment I had in this book. (more on that later)

In addition to the character of Nikki, her boss, Jake, although completely human with no special abilities is actually the glue that show more holds Nikki together and essentially the book itself. He lent a calmness and logic to the story that it truly needed it as Nikki seemed to go off half cocked most of the time.

What Didn't Work: The World Building. The addition of the Damask Circle was woefully under-explained. If not for Michael mentioning a few times that he worked for them I'd never know it existed. This was just one example of the lack of world building. Arthur has also failed to provide rules to her world. Nikki has telekinesis but apparently also has psychometry and precognitive skills too. I've never read a book where one person had so many different types of psychic skills. Usually a person is only gifted with one. In addition it is mentioned so many times that while battling vampires or the zombies Nikki had depleted her psychic gift yet a moment later she is pooling more energy to attack or defend again. It is not explained where her reserve is coming from two, sometimes three times after it's mentioned she's essentially empty of her gifts. In addition to this it appears Arthur's vampires have even greater psychic gifts than Nikki as they have telepathy and can control anyone with their minds in addition to having telekinesis. They also can raise the dead and become invisible by blending into the shadows. And can someone tell me how a vampire 1/3 of the age of our hero could be continually best our hero? In every vampire romance I've read, the older the vampire the greater the strength and the speed and the everything....not so much in Dancing With the Devil.

The romance between Nikki and Michael didn't work either as it rang false by basing itself on a psychic connection that readers had to believe in without any actual romantic gestures from either character. When all was said and done I was still wondering how the characters fancied themselves in love.

The biggest flaw of the book would have to be Nikki herself. She came across angry with the world and self sacrificing to the point I really was rooting for the bad guy to kill her and get it over with. I have a hard time liking a character who completely ignores all of her own instincts, runs headlong into danger every other page knowing it was probably not a good idea and practically gift wraps herself for the bad guy to kidnap her (after already having been kidnapped by him once.) She was BTSTL (Beyond Too Stupid to Live!)

In a Nutshell: Despite the numerous negatives I did give this book 3 stars because it has potential and room to grow. Jake was a very interesting secondary character and I'm interested in seeing what the Damask Circle is all about. show less

For starters I have to say Keri Arthur cannot disappoint in my book. She is an absolute favorite of mine, so I was beyond ecstatic to discover she was going to be re-releasing her Nikki and Michael series in the US!!
There was never a dull moment for me with this book! It was filled with action that had me sitting at the edge of my seat through pretty much the whole book. The characters were fantastic, both very strong willed, very compatible and the chemistry between them is a blast to read. The story sucked me in from the very beginning and still hasn’t released me because it leaves off on one heck of an “UGH” moment. But rest assured the other books are going to be coming out in one month intervals, so the wait will not be show more long. I DEFINITELY recommend this book along with any other book that has Keri’s name on it because you just can’t go wrong with one of hers!!! I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. show less

I received an e-copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had read several of Keri Arthur's other book series and this one was nothing like any of them. While her Riley Jensen series was centered around a werewolf and had more risque sex scenes in than actual action, this book, Dancing with the Devil, lacked detailed sex scenes and focused more on the overall action of the characters.

The focus on the story and the supernatual aspects of the story was something of a bittersweet surprise. I was expecting much of the same from the author as seen in previous book series, but instead this one was fraught with danger and the perplexities of the mind. While this both intrigued me and made the book more of a story show more focused on the complexities of a world filled with unknown paranormal creatures and metaphysical abilities, I did find myself missing the more "hot and heavy" aspects.

Don't misunderstand me. There was a romance in this story. A very good one at that. There was the token instant, confusing connection, followed closely by the dance of insecurities over whether a blooming relationship was wise, and finally the climatic realization of love between the two thoroughly smitten protagonists. However, the reasons for the couple's strife over their budding romance were more deep-seeded and complicated than most paranormal romance literature. Instead of it simply being a question of whether the feelings were true, it was instead painful past events that hindered Nikki and Michael. This was new, unexpected, and a delight to someone who's college major is delving into the inner-workings of the human mind.

Nikki entered the story bent on doing her job and overcoming guilt from her past by doing so. She did not much care how this goal was achieved, even at the risk of her own life. One character in the story claimed Nikki had a "death wish", to which I couldn't agree more. She bumbled along with her heart in the right place as she fought to save the unsaveable and escape the clutches of an evil who has found her to be too intriguing not to claim as his own.

Michael was the white knight of the story several times. Nikki would sacrifice herself or risk it all to do what she believed was right and Michael was forced to keep her from perishing from her reckless antics. Michael has the patience of a saint, to be quite frank. Dark, handsome, self-loathing Michael. Such a perfect protagonist match for wounded daredevil Nikki.

My overall impression of the story was that it was much the same as many paranormal romance books out today. However, Nikki and Michael were a different sort of character type all around. It was refreshing to see protagonists who were not 100% together. They were scarred and they had issues to overcome which left it wide open for the rest of the series to try to mend their battered hearts and bring them together. Not a bad read by any stretch of the imagination.

Review Posted on: http://www.ladybugliterature.blogspot.com show less

I had this book on my TBR pile for awhile and just never got around to it for one reason or another so once I got an ARC from Netgalley I no longer had an excuse for not reading it. I can honestly say I should have read this book much sooner. I really liked it. While it had the usual traits of vampires, drinking blood, sunlight aversion, and invitations to enter a residence, it also had a few new ones that I thought were pretty cool. Nikki's was a strong woman that had a bit of vulnerability to her that meshed really well. Her mysterious new friend, Michael, was just as vulnerable when it came to love. Good thing they hooked up together to figure it all out. Oh, and they solved the problem of a power hungry vampire while trying to deny show more their feelings. Jake was a great fatherly character too that held his own against vampires and irate fathers/clients. Can't wait to start the next book cause this one left me hanging about their relationship. Definitely recommend this to PNR lovers. show less

Well first off, I think I read this a long time ago after it was first released but still read it again. Back then It was hard for me to find anything by Keri Arthur. This is her first book from way back when. She is now a New York Times Best Seller. It was a pretty quick easy read. I believe the first book gives you enough information to want to read the rest of the series.