Saturday 7 November 2009

Bound To Shadows by Keri Arthur


SPOILER ALERT!! There aren't real spoilers for Bound To Shadows itself, but there are big spoilers for the previous book. Wouldn't read this if you haven't yet read Deadly Desire!




"At a local vampire club, someone is beheading the clientele, and the peace the Guardians are meant to maintain is getting shaky. Human and vampire fatalities escalate and Riley Jenson - a rare hybrid of werewolf and vampire - finds herself struggling to make sense of the murders and, in particular, her main suspect: the club's owner Dante Starke and his powerful sexual aura. And if things weren't bad enough, she's also torn between her love for Quinn and her connection with the unpredictable werewolf Kye - her soulmate. With the city on the verge of all-out war, Riley must not only capture the killer, but choose between the man she loves and the man she's destined to be with."

Bound To Shadows is the 8th and penultimate book in the Riley Jenson, Guardian series. It took this series a while to grow on me, but now I'm hooked. I was looking forward to this book with ideas of what I thought could happen, and what I'd like to see happen. I got neither. This book took me completely by surprise. Several times in fact. And the ending? Never, never saw it coming 'til I was there.

Six months after discovering top hit man (and werewolf) Kye Murphy was her soulmate, Riley's still trying to forget him. They haven't seen each other in that time and Riley and Quinn, her vampire lover, are closer than ever. But soon after beginning her latest case Riley finds Kye back in her life. And determined to make her his anyway he has to. But with vampires being beheaded all over town for no obvious reasons, and by some unknown supernatural being, Riley has no time for his promises, or threats.

This book is very well done, and very shocking as I've already said. But on the lighter side, there are some fantastic moments with Riley's twin brother Rhoan, and his mate Liander. And with psychic Dia and her daughter Risa too.

In the previous book I really liked Kye, and although I no longer hated Quinn, I still wasn't a fan of him. Here...well, you should read to find out what happens for yourself. I will say that in some respects this book is too sharp a 180 turn on Deadly Desire. With Ms. Arthur maybe trying a little too hard to make us hate a certain man. But at the same time, it still made sense. This man, seems quite different here to what we've seen before, but I think those changes are part of the point. Part of why what happens at the end happens.

Overall, technically I'd have to give the book 10/10. It's well written with a tight and interesting plot, not to mention a shocking, sad but awesome ending, and some great character development. But, I can't help feeling a little disappointed with this the direction the series has taken with this book. It's not bad, just very different to anything I would have predicted based on earlier books. As I've said already, the shift feels a bit too sharp and sudden. I can understand why it's happened the way it has though. And the shocks were out of the blue and brilliant. The ending is going to have lasting, and massive, consequences for Riley, both personally and professionally and I can't wait to see how she handles them.

Rating: 8/10

1 comment:

Jessica @ a GREAT read said...

OMG I finished this earlier this week and was blown away. I mean I heard there was an ending you either loved or hated and I was just in shock! I so cannot wait to see how the series comes to its end next book.