Sunday Reading - Loose Canon
Welcome back to Sunday.
I was rudely interrupted by real life concerns (and a new World of Warcraft expansion) before I could work on rereading Loose Canon. This is the second in the series, and it came out a couple of years ago, so I needed a refresher before posting a review.
The smutty vampire goodness was just a bonus.
If you followed my advice and read Lost Angeles, the first in the series, you'll be familiar with Trick St. John. He's the drug lord who preaches the gospel of never get attached. Growing up in the gutters of London 200 years ago, the bastard son of a whore, he has everything to prove and the hunger to get it done.
He's got one girl who works for him that he realizes is bad news for his chosen lifestyle, but he can't seem to let her go. It's okay, Trick. Sometimes these things are just meant to be. It seems that Tess, a redheaded little slip of a girl, is just made for him. He, of course, fights this at every step unless he is fighting to keep her alive.
And, in the very beginning of the book, that's exactly what he has to do. She is kidnapped by Lucien, the biggest bad with all the tricks on his side, and only escapes with her life thanks to some heavy handed deus ex machina in the form of Jackson Trace. (I know that in most cases, deus ex machina has some negative connotations. Trust me when I say that, in this case, it works.) Jax literally brings Tess back from the dead, and our story can progress from there. Flawed and realistic characters, beautiful scenery, death at every turn...and no one is what they seem. Our thug drug lord hides a doctorate from the world, and our blood doll who looks and acts like a whore is secretly a giant science nerd. They try to figure out the workings of the end of the world from a secret lab where they analyze blood samples from their inner circle. And, I don't know about you guys, but this nerdy interlude mixed with their smart mouths and tough attitudes was just what I needed. This is a slutty romance vampire novel of the best kind, with just enough intellectual stimulation to keep me from feeling too guilty to admit I enjoyed it. Steamy, sexy, with plenty of action and explosions...and I'm not just talking the orgasm kind. There weren't as many surprises or mysteries as Lost Angeles left us with, but it still ended up leaving me with a desperate need for the next book so that I could get a few more pieces of the puzzle.
Luckily for you, if you're just discovering the series now the next book is out, and I will be covering it next week.