Friday, May 30, 2014

Succubus Dreams by Richele Mead

 Mead set  the scene quickly with multiple plot lines in first dozen pages. There's a new succubus in town, Tawny, whom Georgina must train in the ways of seduction. Improbably, she seems to be clumsy and socially inept, unable to seduce men to get her energy fix. If Georgina cannot train her, Georgina takes the rap for being a bad sensei.

Along with the succubus, Niphon, the imp who recruited her is in town, for no apparent purpose other than to deliver his trainee, and to sow bits of chaos into Seth and Georgina's love life.

Georgina begins to experience strange, sometimes prophetic, and extraordinarily vivid dreams, from which she awakens drained, her mojo stolen.

Carter, Yasmine, Joel and Whitney, who are angels, as well as Vincent, who is human but who has an odd flavored aura, are up to some secret project in Seattle. Of course, they're not going to tell Georgina anything until the fecal matter hits the rotary blades, but we know it will eventually be important.

Side note - So, Georgina has  been around since the days when Greece was in flower, and just now, when she's living in Seattle in the 21st century, she begins to encounter all kinds of strange and different supernatural beings? She seems totally clueless sometimes, and so do all of the powerful angels and demons who are her friends, although they may be perhaps merely secretive, even though they always seem to end up recruiting her as their stalking goat. She has to go to the mortals for help? Willing suspension of disbelief, click my heels together three times...

Georgina also voluntarily takes on an "apprentice" when she begins to help her coworker Doug's sister, Maddie, to become more sociable, to dress more attractively and to behave more assertively. This has some unforeseen (at least to Georgina, I saw it coming miles away) consequences for the overall story arc and our favorite succubus, personally.

There's a standing gag in this one about the angel, Carter, having burned down Georgina's Christmas tree last year (the irony), and one great line that perhaps Seattle-ites will like,

"I think they worked out of Tacoma, which as far as I was concerned might as well be annexed to Hell itself."

We get introduced to Dante Moriarty in this book, when her mortal friend Erik refers her to the black magician, who seems relatively harmless, though irredeemably evil. I think he'll play a stronger role as time goes by.

The usual graphic sex scenes apply.

There's an overall theme to these books, which I noticed in the first, and which Mead tosses out clues for, every so often. I think there's some chance that Georgina can wiggle out of her contract with Hell, or do something that will redeem her in the eyes of Heaven, at long last. With the number of books already written in the series, though, I fear it will take a while.

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