Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead

 

Somehow this book escaped me when I was in the middle of my paranormal romance phase in my early twenties. My friend Heather said it was really good and a bit more of a diamond-in-the-rough than her Vampire Academy series, and since we have pretty similar tastes in PNR, that made me really excited to try the Georgina Kincaid series. It's also unique in that, instead of being about the usual vampires and werewolves and witches, it focuses around demons and angels (and, yes, okay, also vampires).

Georgina is a succubus. She was turned into one as punishment for her crimes as a mortal (and also because of a deal she made). She's a bit reluctant about it though and only steals life force from bad men. Life isn't too bad for her, though; she has a circle of friends, an annoying but okay demon boss, an annoying but okay human boss, and a cat. All that changes, though, when someone starts going around killing immortals in Seattle. Because she might just be next if she doesn't find out the killer.

There was so much to love about this book. It's edgier than VA, which makes sense because that was YA and this is for adults. The sex scenes are great and I liked that Georgina had multiple partners. People who don't like cheating might hate that, but come on, she's a succubus. It wouldn't make sense otherwise, and I think her conflict was handled really well. Her two love interests were both appealing in different ways and I could see why she was attracted to each of them: a bumbling artist type and a smooth, charismatic bad boy? Um, why choose?

I'm giving this four stars instead of five because the pacing could be really slow and I felt like there were a lot of random scenes about Georgina just hanging out that didn't really add anything to the story. I liked Georgina and all of the side characters so I didn't mind this too much, but I think the story could have been tighter if it had more romance and smut and the author had focused on the mystery angle. The research into Judeo-Christian theology was fascinating. I had no idea how twisted angels could be, and the passage she quoted from the Book of Enoch was so fascinating that I looked it up to read more about it. She could have Da Vinci Coded us a little more about that stuff and I would have been fascinated. 

That said, it was still really good and I can't wait to read more. Thank goodness I impulsively bought the whole series while it was on sale so I don't have to wait to find out what happens next.

P.S. This book was published when I was still in school, holy fudge.

4 out of 5 stars