"Awaken Me Darkly" by Gena Showalter

Author: Gena Showlater
Title: "Awaken Me Darkly"
Pages: 384
Publisher: Downtown Press
Misc: Gena's Blog

So, in order to acknowledge my quirk for chronology I decided to start the whole Alien Huntress series from the start, since I had the first two books anyways and even though that I am supposed to review all the top new titles, I will be indulging myself in everything that can make you go squee, especially if the reader is new on the scene. Before "Savor me Slowly" Gena Showlater didn't ring a bell at all.

Mia Snow is a special agent in the New Chicago Police Department, working in the A.I.R unit (Alien Investigation and Removal). The setting is in the near enough future to have your typical American mentality and yet far enough to see that water has been excluded from showring and that cars don't need steering and that aliens of all kinds have nestled on Earth, but without all the hysteria about it. Given the new circumstances justice, legal justace had to adapt and AIR is what the humans came up with. But enough with the pre-word, let's move on to the plot.

While investigating a new strand of serial murders Mia Snow stumbles into big trouble as what seems like an usual psycho alien on the loose, turns out to be a large scale illegal operation that has a lot more to do with Mia than she actually realizes. In the mix we throw a sexy alien, who is a primal murder suspect, Kyrin en Arr, to whom Mia is very sexually drawn; a hidden scheme; mystical abilities that manifest themselves and leave Mia asking questions. When Dallas, her partner and the only man, who can stand her, lies down with a lethal wound that has him dying slowly, Mia is forced to work with Kyrin behind the back of her boss in order to help Dallas and hep clear Kyrin's name, although she doesn't believe him.

In order to avoid spoilers I will not mention the ending, but be sure that Mia confronts a part of her past, which she hadn't known, but she could have gone without. When it all comes down to her, can she handle the strain and could she remain herself with what she knows? Quite the tease, aren't I? In order to find out, you would have to go read the book and that is what I urge you to do.

I have to admit that being a starter novel, this book definitely had to set the stage, so it wasn't was interested as I had anticipated after reading "Savor Me Slowly". The plot is at first glance not that special, since we have a female cop getting herself into trouble, which the TV is full of. However it's the amazing skill of Gena Showalter to strap a well known plot on the surgery table and give it a new look. What starts simple enough spins out of control like a mutating puzzle with every block sealing Mia's choice to act any other way than she did. Of course we have Mia of course, who I think is tough without being haughty or overestimatuing herself like some heroines in the same genre are. Thus we believe her. When she tells she can make someone's life a living hell we don't snort and wave her off as another emancipated daddy's little girl, although she does have her issues with her father.

As a conclusion I just have to say that this novel is a very promising first novel of a series, which has sky rocketed so far with five titles situated in the same world. You couldn't possibly go wrong with this novel, look at the title.