Passion Unleashed by L. Ione

The third (and final?) installment of Larissa Ione’s Demonica series, Passion Unleashed, was just as awesome as the first one.

Both a demon and a vampire, Wraith has waited a hundred years to escape his miserable existence and make the change that will allow him to seduce anyone and anything, and then impregnate it without a care in the world. He has standards, though, and no humans need apply. So when he finds himself needing to seduce a human female named Serena in order to save his life, the horrors of his past come back to haunt him. Thanks to a divine charm, Serena is immortal, but only if she remains a virgin. Can she resist the ultimate temptation, the touch of a tortured, dark-souled demon who is sex personified?

I will be honest, it took me a little longer to really get into Passion Unleashed, but I’m not sure if it was the book or my mood that caused the delay.  The story itself started off a little…stilted, a little too clean.  I may be saying that wrong, but I wasn’t as interested in what was going on at the beginning.  It wasn’t until I was practically half way through the novel that I really became absorbed.  I think what it was is the action in the beginning was a little too easy.  Wraith and Serena go treasure hunting and they are able to get wherever and whatever they want without little trouble; if only Indiana Jones had it that easy.  However, once Wraith and Serena retrieve the artifacts they were after and the villain came out of the woods a little more, then the story got really interesting.

One thing that was great throughout all the pages was the interaction between Serena and Wraith.  Before now, we always knew that there was more to Wraith than what we were given and that is just driven home in Pleasure Unleashed.  We see a side to Wraith that not only works with the personality we’ve come to know, but enhances it to the point where you can’t help but love him.  Everyone loves a bad boy and Wraith is so the poster bad boy now.

There is one thing I’m questioning…is this the end?  I want to say that I had heard that the Demonica was a trilogy, but there is a certain brother that was left hanging and it just seems like he has a story to tell as well.  One I wouldn’t mind hearing.  So while the doors may be closing on these Seminus brothers, we may get some more out of them at a later date.

Overall, another great novel involving what is fast becoming one of my favorite supernaturals – demons.  Ione gives us a great spin on the relationship between her “buffys” and the demons of the world along with a good apocalypse.

Read order:
Pleasure Unbound – excerpt
Desire Unchained – excerpt
Passion Unleashed (3/31/2009) – excerpt

Also reviewed by:
Darque Reviews