One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance; Anthology
Series: Magnus Pack, Book 3.5
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 305 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle




I tried to avoid it. I don't really like anthologies much. I'd be perfectly happy buying individual novella-length ebooks all day long instead of buying an anthology. Problem is, I wanted to read one of the stories in this book more than I didn't want to buy an anthology.

It was worth it, though. I wasn't as pleased with Eden's Wicked Ways as I was with Laurenston's Miss Congeniality, but the two novellas combined for a solid read overall and I'm glad I read it.


It's 1984, and for seven long years the prince of the Van Holtz family, Niles Van Holtz, has shamelessly pursued brilliant Ph.D. and college professor Irene Conridge. A former child prodigy and world-renowned physicist but about as removed from socially adept as a person could be, Irene doesn't understand why Van Holtz bothers. It's not like she hasn't made her general annoyance with his existence perfectly clear. Nor is she any sort of beauty. Still, the man with enough females swooning after him to start his own cult just keeps popping into her personal space whenever she's at an event for the school. Him and that arrogance of his, which surely has its own zip code.

Van is quite happy being a total hound with the ladies. He has no intention of settling down and is quite content with his life, which is split between managing the top Van Holtz restaurant with his sister and making time with as many lucky ladies as he wants. Still, there's something about the pale-eyed, bitchy, brilliant Irene that calls to the wolf in him. Has ever since he first caught scent of her all those years ago. He can't help teasing her and poking at her at every turn. Her certainly wants to bed her.

When he's on his way home from an event that...well...didn't end so well considering the stitches he's going to have to have, he sees Irene's car parked near his pack's territorial borders. Borders shared with a pride of lion shifters and a pack of hyena shifters. And Irene is nowhere to be found. That's about when things for Niles Van Holtz, future Van Holtz pack alpha, and professor Irene Conridge, brilliant physicist, start to go to the dogs.


Here is incontrovertible proof of just how big a fan I am of Laurenston's work. I have no fondness for prequels, to start, and just the thought of reading a prequel after I've read other books in the series timeline makes my OCD-having butt breaking out in hives. I'm big on series timeline order. I find it comforting.

Still, here I am, gobbling up Miss Congeniality. And gobble I did. I squealed and laughed, giggled and gasped. For the record, Laurenston tends to have that affect on me. Hell, I even laughed over the reader's note she wrote for the forward! Her humor is just my kind of humor.

She's a damn good storyteller, too. I haven't been quite as thrilled with the romance threads in her last two full-length books as I have in all the others, but this one takes me right back to Happytown. I loved Irene and Van. I loved their characters (they have some great banter), I loved their romance, I loved the 80's flashbacks (though I could live my entire life cheerfully forgetting the hairstyles of the day), and I loved the few threads of danger and suspense that added some depth to the story.

In fact, I loved absolutely everything about this little gem, and I was very impressed with the seamless attention to detail as Laurenston bridged this novella to a scene in the second book in the Magnus Pack series. Everything fit perfectly. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Laurenston books (including those she writes as G.A. Aiken) are my crack and I'm happily addicted. She always leaves me wanting more.


As far as first dates go, Miranda Shaw has had better. Much, much better. The man she met online turned out to be worse than even the most horrific horror story. In fact, he's not a man at all, but a blood-thirsty monster. A monster that Miranda hadn't believed existed until he sank his fangs into her neck and started to drink. That's when Miranda started to scream.

He'd moved into his new house five days ago and Cain Lawson had been dreaming of his sexy neighbor since she introduced herself and brought him cookies. There was something about the pretty Miranda that draws him and strokes the fur of the jaguar inside him. Hearing her horrified scream, though, and busting into her house to see a vampire feeding from her, makes former FBI agent and shifter Cain go all kinds of primal.

The attack on Miranda takes on a more sinister meaning when the vampire who attacked her is identified and turns out to have a dark and deadly human past. Now that he's a vampire, he's infinitely more dangerous and harder to stop. And he's got Miranda in his sights.


I'm a long-time fan of Eden's dark paranormal world. I've always enjoyed how her multiple paranormal series and books exist within the same world with the same mythos, so just the stories and characters are changing. It makes it very easy to slip into a new story without needing too much world-building. That also benefited me in this novella, where I didn't need page time wasted on a lot of exposition.

Eden's edgy, sexy romance fiction leans towards a darker edge than Laurenston's, but Wicked Ways was still a good pick for the pairing. I just had trouble warming up to the storyline in this one. The characters were okay. Neither got on my nerves too much, but I wasn't totally sold on the supposed depth of their feelings for each other as their relationship evolved.

Without a doubt Eden writes smoking hot sex scenes, but in this case, one or two fewer would have allowed for a more well-defined suspense plotline, or there could have been room for added character development and more focus on the emotion of the romance instead of the sex. It's not that I actually disliked anything I read in this novella, but nothing really wowed me, either, and Miranda's involvement in capturing the vampire strained plausibility. This one was an okay read.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 352 Pages, 5011 Locations
Formats: Paperback, Kindle




Wish I'd Read Immortal Danger First
After the brutal slaying of a close friend, Sarah King knows her only hope of staying alive is to secure the protection of the strongest alpha wolf in California, Lucas Simone. To get him to agree, however, is going to take a hell of a lot more than batted eyelashes and a "pretty please with sugar on top" plea. When she finally gets to him, sees him in person, the full meaning of the old adage of being caught between a rock and a hard place becomes painfully clear. Lucas exudes a raw sexuality that hits Sarah hard, makes her want and yearn, but he looks just as forbidding...if slightly less insane...as the one from whom Sarah is trying to hide.

As a wolf, the wildest, most powerful, and often least mentally stable of all the shifter breeds of Other, Lucas is just as likely to hunt her as to help her. She's willing to trade information to secure his help, information about a rouge wolf encroaching on Lukas' territory. She hopes it's enough to warrant protection, because she has plenty of other information she plans to keep from him, secrets that would garner no sympathy - nor mercy, for that matter - from the intense wolf. Instead, they could go a long way to securing her death sentence, because just as it is clear to Sarah that Lucas wants her, there is no doubt in Sarah's mind what he'll do to her if he finds out that not even the danger posed by a wolf bent on killing him and taking his pack compares to the risk of Sarah herself.

Some people say the truth will set you free. Sarah figures those people haven't had the hot breath of a feral wolf shifter wafting over the tender flesh at their throats...or felt the blazing passion of a possessive, clawed hand sliding over the bare skin at their hip.


I've been enjoying Cynthia Eden's books for several years and particularly like the paranormal world she's created that encompasses the Midnight Trilogy and Night Watch series. It's a solid, well-developed, fully rounded-out world that includes all manner of beastie, called Other, living alongside humanity. One of the nicest things about that world is the familiarity it breeds, makes it easy to connect to the characters and get into the plot of a book, even across different series, without a lot of exposition dragging down the narrative. It's just a quirk of my nature that, despite that, I like to know where a book I read falls within existing series.

Never Cry Wolf gave me a bit of a problem in that area. Conflicting information between a few different sites had me confused, but from the websites of Eden and the publisher, it seems Never Cry Wolf exists in the world of the Others, with closer ties to the Night Watch series than the Midnight Trilogy, but it seems to be more a followup of the book Immortal Danger, another novel that is loosely connected to Night Watch but not actually a part of that series. Characters introduced in Immortal Danger are featured in Never Cry Wolf, including one of the protagonists, Lucas Simone, and several points of the plot of Immortal Danger served as backstory in Never Cry Wolf. I think this book read well enough as a stand-alone, but I think I would've appreciated the latter half of the book more had I read Immortal Danger first.

In typical Eden style, Lucas and Sarah are strong romantic leads, their relationship marked by lots of lusty yearning and plenty of intense emotion. It started hot and ramped up quick, and was peppered with the sort of heated back-and-forth dialogue that Eden does so well. It always seems part story development, part character foreplay and it's one of my favorite aspects of Eden's books.

The plot was entertaining, and I especially enjoyed the first half, but the external conflict got a little muddy at about the halfway point. I wasn't thrilled with the plot threads that sprang from the introduction of the voodoo priestess and felt the story got a little out of control from that point on. I didn't dislike it, but it's not as cohesive as others I've read from Eden. Everything was a little too much. Sarah had a few too many secrets, there were a few too many attempted plot twists - and not all of them were completely successful. There were also a few too many coincidences, a few too many suspicious connections between secondary and ancillary characters... It just wasn't as clean and tight as it could have been.

Still, the chemistry between the characters was intense, the characters themselves were well developed and likable, and - again, typical Eden - both the male and female protagonist are strong, independent characters who can hold their own. Sarah's physical strength doesn't match Lucas', of course, but she's got her own strengths and Eden never once let her need for Lucas' protection make it seem like Sarah was some weak damsel in distress. I still wish I'd read Immortal Danger before this one. I think it would have helped me with the characters that had obviously been previously introduced. Though this book wasn't my favorite by Eden, I'm still a fan, and I plan to give Immortal Danger a read soon. Not only do I want to get more detail on the threads that got mentioned here as backstory, but I liked the vampire and her fire breather and look forward to a closer look at their story.

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Series: Night Watch, Book 3
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 352 Pages, 6642 Locations
Formats: Paperback, Kindle



Action-Packed and Incendiary

Hybrid demon and Night Watch Hunter Zane Wynter always gets his man...or woman, regardless of race, gender, or...skill set. It's his job as a part of the group of bounty hunters best suited to take down the baddest of the bad, the Others who have gone over the line and hurt and killed innocents. And he's very good at his job.

Rushing into a burning building to catch the murderous vampire he'd been tasked to hunt down, however, puts him face to face with the slight body and wide, pretty eyes of Jana Carter, the vampire's next intended victim. The building comes down around them as he saves her life, but she disappears before he realizes that Jana Carter is no one's pretty little victim. She's an Ignitor, a fire starter wanted in connection with several fires in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. And she's a killer. She's also his next target.

Catching her is the least of Zane's problems, though, when she steps out of the shadows in front of a demon den to warn him about the bloodthirsty mob inside. It was his first clue that not all is what it seems in relation to the Ignitor, but as it seems everyone and their fiendish brother are trying to kill Zane and take Jana alive as soon as he snaps the cuffs on her, it certainly isn't his last.

The FBI wants her dead, some shadowy fanatic group called Perseus wants her back, Jana wants to be left alone, and Zane...the roguish and deadly demon...just wants Jana. Burn baby, burn.

This third foray into the Night Watch series is as jam-packed with action and adventure as the biggest summer movie blockbuster. Fast, fiery, and tons of fun, Cynthia Eden has hit hard with the powerful demon hybrid Zane and the wily and tenacious Jana. I've been a Zane fan since the series started, patiently (well...as patient as I ever am) waiting for his book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Zane has always struck me as a guy with lots of still water that runs deep beneath the bad boy player image, and that certainly bore out in this book. And I can't tell you how thrilled I was with Jana's character. One of the best I've read in the genre lately, her winsome and harmless appearance and skilled acting make her appear the helpless victim. Her core of molten lava over tensile steel makes her anything but. Her character had depth, complexity, and tons of appeal. Together, Zane and Jana fit perfectly, and I appreciated that Eden actually developed their relationship as the book progressed.

The plot was non-stop, if a little chaotic at times, and there did seem to be a rather large number of megalomaniacs with sanity issues running around for one book. That being said, Eden did a great job creating action that fit well with the characters and developed the plot around who and what they were. As a result, the story felt like a natural evolution of ever-increasing tension, danger, and emotion as the characters react to each situation in which they find themselves.

There wasn't a lot of world building or exposition in this book, but that's common for Eden's style. Readers glean information as they go, instead of getting told the lay of the land with each book. I've read the first two books in this series, as well as the first two books in the Midnight Trilogy, which shares a world and all its mythos with the Night Watch series, so I'm comfortable with the background, but new readers may feel ill-prepared and a bit lost as they dive into the paranormal community here. Eden also isn't a paragon of descriptive passages, so readers who favor having a clear visual of characters and scenery as a story progresses may find it difficult to do so. I would have liked a little more definition given to the locations in the book, so the book had a little more of the southern flavor of Baton Rouge, but it wasn't a serious complaint. There was more than enough action to keep me highly entertained.

I'm a fan of Cynthia Eden's books, but some I've liked some more than others. Eternal Flame is definitely on the list of those I've favored the most. The characters were particularly appealing, the action was high octane, the plot a bit messy at times but definitely layered, and the romance was a full five alarm. Yum.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Deadly, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 416 Pages, 6221 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle



Another Road to Eden

Two FBI Special Agents have been partnered to take down a serial killer just starting to rack up the body count in the small southern town of Jasper. One, Luke Dante, has a special touch with victims, the other, Monica Davenport, has a unique ability to get into the minds of killers. Both have tragedies in their past that define them, both have histories...and six years ago, they had each other...until Monica walked away and left Luke aching for the only woman he'd ever love. Now they have to work together, and as intent as Luke is at doing his job, he's equally intent on Monica. She walked away once and he let her go. He has no intention of being that stupid again.

A killer stalks his prey and uses their own fears against them. Secrets from the past threaten to destroy the only two people able to stop him. A woman of ice and a man of fire have to come together and free their own fears to find justice for the slain and hope for the future. It's a deadly race.

Cynthia Eden writes excellent and edgy paranormal romance with a twist of suspense and in Deadly Fear, she's left off the paranormal and stuck with the full-on romantic suspense. The plot may not be the most original I've ever read, but it's well developed and told with Eden's flair for intense emotional impact. The danger is visceral and the small victories and failures of the agents as they race towards catching the killer are many and varied and add nice depth and complexity. I did have some issues, though. There just wasn't a whole lot of surprise to the suspense and the 'big picture,' once revealed, seemed a little cliched, but it was well told, quickly paced, and thorough.

I can't say I was as pleased with the romance between Luke and Monica, though. I had a very hard time warming up to Monica, and though I completely understand her motivations and the reasons she is the way she is, understanding doesn't make her any more likable in the beginning. I liked Luke, but then I haven't met an Eden alpha male that I haven't liked, so that wasn't surprising. His character wasn't as well developed as I would have liked, though. There just wasn't a whole lot to his character that went deeper than or beyond his feelings for Monica, and that made their relationship seem sort of two dimensional and it was too quick to develop (or re-develop) for my personal tastes.

Eden wrote the pair with the same searing sensuality that she has made a staple in her paranormal romances, but without that paranormal aspect to add layers, the intensity and impetus behind the whole relationship seemed more to be solely based on lust and sexual chemistry and less on trust and compatibility. That lent the relationship a lot of sexual power, but not a lot of the subtler, more slowly enticing aspects of romantic relationship development.

I do think there was a bit of a ball drop with another aspect of Dante's character definition, too. He is touted as being fantastic with victims, but he isn't really given an opportunity for that personality trait to be shown or explored, and I wish it had because it would have balanced nicely with Monica's ability to profile monsters. That was one of the points that drew me to the story from reading the description, and it was sadly underdeveloped.

I wasn't as pleased with Deadly Fear as I was hoping I was going to be, but I'm a huge Eden fan and will give the second book in this series, Deadly Heat, a chance when it comes out in February 2011. Romantic suspense is a genre I'm fond of and I'm interested in seeing where some of the characters we met here are going in their development.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Night Watch, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Sandra "Dee" Daniels lost her entire family to vampires when she was just a kid. It was a brutal awakening to the world of Others that still rips her out of sleep with a scream on her lips. Since that bloody night, she's made it her goal to track and kill the vampires responsible - and until then, take down as many other fanged fiends as she can. Her job as a bounty hunter for Night Watch, a...specialty organization to say the least, keeps her connected to the baddies in Baton Rogue, and rumor is there's a Born Master in town - a vampire that isn't one of the changed Taken but an ancient evil that defies human comprehension for his ability to wreak nearly biblical destruction. If Dee doesn't stop him, the Born will make the town run red.

She prefers to work alone, but after a couple of run ins with the stranger Simon Chase - a sexy as hell bad boy intent on saving her ass whether she likes it or not, she finds out his past is similar to hers and he's out to take down the Born, too. Pairing up isn't her style, but in this case, accepting a hand may be the only way to keep from losing her head...unless bad boy Chase has his own agenda and isn't quite the knight in leather-clad armor he appears.

Without a doubt, Eden pens intense, kick ass action and offers up gorgeous alpha men for our reading pleasure, but in this book, she had her work cut out for her. We met Dee in Eternal Hunter (my review here) and I quickly realized that while she's loyal to her friends, she's got issues a mile wide...the sort that would make her being the center of attention a potential problem. I can imagine not everyone is going to like Dee in I'll Be Slaying You, as she's not traditionally likable. I, however, did like her, much to my surprise, because while her blind prejudice and quick-to-condemn aggression aren't the most appealing traits ever, I couldn't help but admire the core of her. She's a girl who lost everyone she loved in brutal fashion at an incredibly impressionable age...stumbled upon her family's butchered bodies on the same night she went on her first date and got her first kiss, and despite a horror that would have sent most to the mental hospital, she found a way to make a life for herself - even if she is a bit screwed up from it all. Who the hell wouldn't be?  She fights forces of darkness that she shouldn't be able to fight instead of screaming about life's injustices...or just plain screaming, locked up in a padded room somewhere, and I admire that about her, so yes, I like her, even with her flaws. And I appreciate Eden for not glossing over those flaws or eradicating them through the story arc of the book.

Liking her self-proclaimed partner in this book, Simon Chase, wasn't hard either. Sexy, yes, and layered with his own issues and motivations. I loved his unwavering dedication to Dee, even as she was...well...being Dee. And I thought their relationship was lusty good fun, if a bit lacking in sweet tender romance. Dee? Do sweet and tender?? Not without a lobotomy, that's for sure. Suffice it to say, the relationship between them may not be my personal preference for heartfelt romance reading, but it was very in line with what we know of Dee and what we've learned of Simon, so I have no complaints.

I do have a couple of complaints about the plot, though. It wasn't the most original, to be honest, but I will say that it did take a couple of turns that pushed it into fresher territory, and I liked that very much. Reading it was like walking along a very very well worn path for just over half a journey...and then suddenly the earthquake hits and you turn to race along a slightly different route to get to safety. That's how the plot of I'll Be Slaying You read for me as I went along. Familiar and a bit unoriginal at first - though well told, don't get me wrong - then some surprising aspects came in and made it fresher and more unique.

The writing style and character development were really solid, though, and I've loved the backdrop of the world Eden started creating in her Midnight Trilogy and spread to encompass the Night Watch series. I loved getting another peek at Jude and Erin from Eternal Hunter, and of course getting reacquainted with the half-demon Zane and the cop Anthony. I'll Be Slaying You may not have been perfect for me, but it was a good, solid read full of action and lusty good times. I'm looking forward to Eternal Flame due out in December.

Night Watch Series:
   

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Series: Midnight Trilogy, Book 2
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


Detective Todd Brooks is sick of being in the dark on cases, sick of feeling like his partner...the partner he saw turn into a wolf in an agonizing cacophony of broken and reshaped bones and limbs, doesn't trust him. And he's still not sure how the heck that guy Niol tossed him across the room without seeming to lay a hand on him. He's haunted by what he's seen but he's struggling not to let it affect his work. So what if he's gotten a little testy from the burden? When a new murder case drops into his and his partner Colin's lap, evidence points hard towards the sexiest woman Todd's ever seen and he instantly wants her - bad. He should have guessed that's all is not what it seems, and as murdered men keep popping up, the suspect who every instinct inside Todd is screaming is innocent falls under closer scrutiny and Todd finds out she's got a few secrets of her own. Like the fact that she's a sex demon, for one, though Cara prefers the term succubus, and thanks to Todd no longer accepting being kept in the dark by his partner and Captain, he's already realized that the most likely perpetrator of the deaths of several of Atlanta's human male population is a succubus. Problem is, they're territorial, and Cara's the only one in town. Maybe he shouldn't have slept with her after all...

I truly enjoy Cynthia Eden's writing style and her ability to put together a rousing suspense novel ripe with fantastic paranormal aspects. I think she has a near adept-level ability to wend stunning sexuality, heat, and emotion into a conflagration that sets pages on fire. I love this world she's created for her Midnight trilogy, a world in which others such as demons, shifters, vampires, and witches work and play side by side with humanity with most humans being none the wiser. In the first book of the trilogy, Hotter After Midnight, I also thoroughly enjoyed the lead characters and their relationship, as well as the development of the mystery and suspense, and thought those two aspects worked well together.

Midnight Sins wasn't quite as effective in that last area, unfortunately. We first met the good detective in that first book, Hotter After Midnight, and to be honest, I didn't like him very much. Todd's a bit too quick to fire on that temper of his and he has a tendency to walk very loudly while carrying that big stick. He struck me as stubborn, close minded, opinionated, long on ego, and not so long on intelligence. Admittedly, that impression improved when he got his own book, and his character developed along nicer paths as soon as he got a look at Cara, the succubus with the heart of gold, a sex demon who's given up sex because it leaves her feeling empty inside.

To be honest, I thought the plot of Midnight Sins was a little stronger and more comprehensive than Hotter After Midnight, the danger more personal, and the motivations of the perpetrator more believable. The development and arc of the plot overall was good. I just had some difficulties warming up to Todd as a character, and I wasn't totally sold on the relationship between Todd and Cara. I did enjoy Todd eventually, and I think there was a lot of progress in his character from the previous book through to the end of this one. There were several scenes, one with Colin in particular, in which Todd's lack of prejudice and his ability to adapt quickly to a major paradigm shift became a very nice character trait.

That left, however, problems for me between him and Cara. Their relationship was sexy, it was sultry, it was hot, but it didn't have a whole lot of narrative surrounding its development (it was more like 'I see, I want, I have'), and it didn't offer much beyond superficial motivations for their hook up. Cara's smokin' hot (she's a succubus, so that sort of goes without saying) and Todd's drawn to her almost compulsively, and in Cara's case, she can't mind mojo Todd when he's awake and that appeals to her. It just didn't strike me as much of a solid foundation for a long lasting relationship. Obviously, they get to know each other better as the book progresses, but I never quite got the sense of a love match, so much as a lust match.

Other aspects of the book were very appealing, though. I thoroughly enjoy when books in a series include characters previously featured, like Todd's partner, the wolf shifter Colin Gyth and his lover Dr. Emily Drake, the monster doctor, from Hotter After Midnight. As Todd's partner, Colin was in several scenes with him, but there were also one or two that featured Colin and Emily alone and I thought the continuity and solidity of character definition between the first book and this one was particularly well done with them and also with the Medical Examiner Smith and the guys' Captain, McNeal.

Despite not being totally enamored of the foundations of the relationship between Todd and Cara, by the end they did fit pretty well together, and the story surrounding them was enjoyable. I'm very much looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy, Midnight's Master, to spend some time with my favorite character of the entire series so far, the level ten demon Niol. I love that he has his own book and I can't wait to read it.

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Series: Night Watch, Book 1
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Formats: Paperback, Kindle


It's stating the obvious, but I read and review a lot of books, commenting on strength of plot, technical aspects of writing, character development, world building, etc. I have to admit, I enjoy detailing why I like or dislike something. Occasionally, though, I come across a book that hits all or most of my happy spots, not because the plot is so spectacular, or the writing is so technically impressive, or the characters stand out that brightly, but for some nebulous, purely emotional reason that doesn't translate as well to an objective review. Eternal Hunter is one of those books.

Erin is new to Baton Rouge, working as a tenacious Assistant District Attorney and working at hiding herself - both her location from a violent, murderous stalker intent on Erin as his mate and her Other nature from...well...everyone else. Jude Donovan, bounty hunter and supreme alpha male shapeshifter has a much different agenda on those points. From the moment he senses and scents Erin, he refuses to allow her to hide anything from him, and he sure as hell refuses to let any sick psycho shifter come anywhere near her. Both have secrets they guard, both have wounds that still haunt them. Both will learn that only together can they stop a creature bent on death and destruction.

Eternal Hunter is a quickly paced, sensual, and dangerous romp and I really, really enjoyed it. There's something about Cynthia Eden's style that appeals to me. I enjoy the world she's created, one that exists in the same universe as that of her Midnight Trilogy, and I thought the chemistry between Erin and Jude was top notch. I really appreciated Erin's strength, as that's a personal preference of mine, and I loved Jude's uber-alpha personality tempered with some emotional insecurity that made him even more appealing as that vulnerability humanized him. Their characters and relationship really worked for me.

I'm not going to be overly critical of the story elements, I'm simply going to say that the plot was perhaps not the most original I've ever read, the sexual and burgeoning emotional relationship between Erin and Jude was given much more room than the threat of the stalker, and the climax had some cliched elements. There were also a couple of plot threads that struck me as odd. None of that severely impacted my pleasure in the read, though, because I found it to be very satisfying on an emotional level overall. Sometimes, for whatever reason, a book just hits the right buttons for a person. Eternal Hunter hit the right buttons for me.