Deadly Desire by K. Arthur

I actually finished Deadly Desire a week ago, but since Weekly Geeks was all about leaving questions for reviews, I held it off until now. However, GOD this was a great novel!

Guardian Riley Jenson always seems to face the worst villains. And this time’s no different. For it’s no ordinary sorceress who can raise the dead to do her killing. But that’s exactly what Riley expects to find at the end of a trail of female corpses used—and discarded—in a bizarre ritual of evil. With pressure mounting to catch one fiend, another series of brutal slayings shocks the vampire world of her lover, Quinn. So the last thing Riley needs is the heat of the upcoming full moon bringing her werewolf hormones to a boil—or the reappearance of a sexy bounty hunter, the rogue wolf Kye Murphy.

Riley has threatened Murphy with arrest if he doesn’t back off the investigation, but it’s Riley who feels handcuffed by Kye’s lupine charm. Torn between her vamp and wolf natures, between her love for Quinn and her hots for Kye, Riley knows she’s courting danger and indulging the deadliest desires. For her hunt through the supernatural underworld will bring her face-to-face with what lurks in a darkness where even monsters fear to tread.

I had completely forgotten that I had the newest Riley Jensen novel in my TBR stack and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read it.  Seriously, this one kept me riveted to the pages all day!  There is just something about Arthur’s writing that completely captures me and everything on the page seems natural.  The pacing flowed seamlessly; we were given highs and lows and there was never a dull moment.  Whether Riley was in the Directorates office or out chasing the bad man, I wanted to know what was going on.

I had such a hard time putting this book down today.  Not only does Deadly Desire further Riley’s character development, but she finally gets her golden star and it completely ends up being the wrong choice.  I’m not going to say what the golden star is, because it would be a total spoiler, but needless to say, the Bound by Shadows is going to be fabulous because I have a feeling Quinn is going to have a much larger presence.

Overall, Deadly Desire just confirms that Keri Arthur is a fantastic author and one of my all time favorites.  Not only are her worlds so believable that they instantly transport you to them; but her characters have real flaws and emotions that make it so easy to connect to them.  I cannot say this enough, if you haven’t started reading the Riley  Jensen series by Keri Arthur, you really need to.  This is one for the keeper shelf, so hit the bookstore and get it today!  I so can’t wait until Bound by Shadows comes out on October 27th!

For this weeks Weekly Geeks, we were told to ask our readers for questions regarding novels we were getting ready to review.  Since Deadly Desire was one of those novels I threw up, here are the questions that were left and my answers:

Dreamybee asks: It sounds like it has potential to be very steamy, but does it work, or does the vampire/werewolf thing just make for some cheesy wanna-be steaminess?  Also, I just jumped over to Amazon and saw that Deadly Desire is the 7th book in a series. Does it stand alone or do you need to have read the other 6?  Sex is a very big part of the werewolf culture in the Riley Jenson series.  In Arthur’s world, werewolves don’t bay at the full moon or get all monstrous.  What they do is get really turned on.  As such, they are very promicoius with their partners because that is also the only way for them to find their soul mates.  So the werewolves tend to have a very whorish rep; however, Arthur doesn’t make any of her sex scenes slutty.  They just have a more freer opinion about the naked body where a lot of people would get hung up on it.  With that said, there does tend to be a lot of suggestions of sex, but when Arthur wants Riley to enjoy it, then yes, she does get steamy; but I think it’s done really well.

Ideally, you would want to read this as a series.  You could probably read it as a stand alone, but you would miss a lot.  Personally, this is one of my favorite series, so I would automatically tell you to read all the novels.  Let’s just say, the novel is a lot more richer if you know what’s going on.

gautami tripathy asked: Are these romances? How do you rate those? Are those sensual too?  The Riley Jenson series are urban fantasy with romantic elements.  The romance doesn’t drive the story, but it does impact it in various stages.  However, Riley has yet to get her HEA, but she will get one eventually (I hope) since the series only has two more books left to be published.  I really don’t give out ratings on novels.  I find it hard to rate with any kind of consistency, so I don’t.  All the novels tend to be sensual, but not in an overt erotic way.  I think they are tastefully done, but they do get a little explicit.

Read Order:
Full Moon Rising
Kissing Sin
Tempting Evil
Dangerous Games
Embraced by Darkness
The Darkest Kiss
Deadly Desire
Bound by Shadows

Also Reviewed By:
SciFiGuy
Bitten by Books
Darque Reviews
Amberkatze’s Book Blog
Heather Kay’s Book Blog
Slip Carefully…

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

7 Comments

  1. I have just finished reading the first Riley Jensen book, and I am wondering why on earth I left it so long, and how was it that I didn’t know about Keri Arthur before the beginning of this year.

    It was interesting for me to read that first book because I do live in Melbourne, and so recognised quite a few of the places that were mentioned!

  2. Hi there

    I’m brand new to your blog but I loved this review so much I had to give you our weekly award on Royal Reviews! Your enthusiasm was infectious :-)

    You don’t need to do anything for the award or pass it on. You can choose to display it on your blog if you like and you can pick it up here from tomorrow: http://www.theroyalreviews.blogspot.com

    Thanks again for a great review. I’m diving into this series VERY soon.

  3. This has been my favourite series as well, and Deadly Desire was the best book to date. I was just really happy she stuck with Quinn throughout the book, and for once her book had a happy ending (well, they were together till the end)
    Great review

  4. I saw a link to this review from The Royal Reviews. What a great review! I’m putting this series on my TBR list. =) Congrats on receiving the award =)

  5. Great review, I’ve only read Full Moon Rising and really enjoyed it but your review has inspired me to get my act together and catch up with this series. Congrats on the Inspirational Review Award too!

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