Succubus Revealed by Richelle Mead

 I must confess, I knew where this story arc was eventually going to land about halfway through the first novel, but it was a long, strange trip getting there. Just when Georgina finally begins to believe she can enjoy some happiness with her lover, Seth, even though their affair has cost her her job at Emerald City bookstore, and most of her friends there. She's working part time as a Santa's helper at the local mall, trying to keep the Santa employed there from hitting the bottle too early and often, when she gets a formal notification from Hell of her pending transfer out of Seattle, to a much less sinful city, Las Vegas.

A great quote in the early going,

"...she (the archdemoness of Portland) demands we step up and prove what superior Hellish minions we are."

"How?" asked Hugh, looking mildly interested. "With a soul pledge drive?"
"Don't be ridiculous," said Jerome.
"'Then with what?" I asked.
Jerome gave a tight-lipped smile. "With bowling."

When she visits Vegas before her transfer, she finds that her old friend, the incubus Bastien, is there already, and the archdemon of Vegas, Luis, is one she has worked with before, and thinks is a great boss. There's a friendly and gregarious succubus there who welcomes her with open arms, and arranges for her to get a dancing job right away. It's just perfect.

In fact, it's too perfect. That gets Georgina, Roman and Hugh worried, and they begin to suspect that Hell has more serious and underhanded reasons for getting Georgina out of Seattle than either its natural capriciousness or her lackluster performance recently can justify. She also uncovers some evidence that points to Erik's death as a homicide by a Hellish assassin, rather than a burglary gone horribly wrong, and when a demon is involved in making Seth's sister-in-law suffer a relapse in her fight with cancer, well then, three times is enemy action.

When they finally get to the bottom of the matter it creates the crisis we've all been hoping for, to reveal what Mead has been up to with Georgina's story all along.

I have to admit, I seldom get teary-eyed over anything in urban fantasy, but this one had me a little misty at a few points. Good work.

Succubus Shadows by Richelle Mead

 How does an author skillfully give us a core dump of all of the background information on a character who has lived for centuries, if not millenia? By having her kidnapped and trapped in the world of dreams by a pair of Oneroi (minions of Nyx, whom we encountered earlier in Georgina's saga) and forced to dream about events from the past, sometimes truthfully, sometimes falsely, that's how!.

As the story begins, Roman is now Georgina's roomie, following him saving the day when his father, the archdemon Jerome, was summoned and imprisoned by rogue demons within his organization. Seth and Maddie are getting married soon, and Georgina has been dragooned into being the fashion consultant for the big even and even, horror of horrors, a bridesmaid! There's a new succubus in town - ostensibly playing tourist, but more than likely up to no good, especially when she sets out to seduce Seth.

One of the charming things about these stories is the "humanity" of the immortals with whom Georgina associates. Cory the vampire has a HUGE crush on a Goth girl, and the vampires, imps and resident angel in town, Carter, gather on weeknights sometimes to play board games.

After a bad round of Pictionary,

"I left amid protests abut being a bad sport and considered myself lucky when Carter said they were going to play Jenga next."

It is to giggle.

I had high hopes that we'd finally get to the bottom of  the mystery of Georgina's contract, but we're left with the whispers of a dying man pointing us entirely in another direction. More fun and games will follow, I'm sure.

Succubus Heat by Richelle Mead

 Georgina has been going through the various stages of grieving for the loss of her relationship with Seth, and at the start of this book she appears to have settled for anger, and bad behavior. She has been "dating" Dante, the corrupt magician, who makes his living giving bogus Tarot and palm readings, and has been a bit of a pain in the rear to all of her immortal colleagues. Arch demon Jerome finally tires of this and gets her out of his hair by lending her out to a rival in Vancouver Canada, Cedric, who needs her to infiltrate and discourage a group of wannabe Satanists who are embarrassing his evil organization.

There's a deeper plot going on, though, and Georgina is once again stuck in the middle of divine and demonic intrigues.

In the midst of all of the intrigue, she keeps being thrust into situations where she must deal with Seth and Maddie's relationship, and she doesn't handle it well. When Jerome is summoned and imprisoned by a magician and an unknown demonic rival, she and all the other lesser immortals lose their powers - the vampires can walk around in daylight, and succubi cannot shape shift or sustain themselves on sexual energy, things get even more complicated, as the two of them realize that they can finally do what they could not do when they were openly in love - make love. Could this be happiness at last? Hell, no! Just more ways for them to screw things up.

I have to say that I really didn't see the identity of the villain coming until the final reveal. Mead did a great job of leaving the clues out there to see, but not in a way that made it too obvious.

One of the mysteries that has been hanging out there for a couple of books now is whether there was some sort of irregularity with Georgina's contract with Hell - and I think the readers have been holding out hope that if there was, she'd somehow be able to find a loophole to get out of her servitude. After doing a more powerful immortal a favor, the demon checks the archives and finds that the contract was clearly written, no way out. Drat! But I've thought of at least one circumstance which could void the contract, if it could ever be proven, and I'm sure Mead's got something up her sleeve for the day she's ready to end the series...which appears at least a few books away, at least.

Possibly one of the best plotted books Mead has written, this one moves the plot arc in an unexpected direction.

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.

Succubus on Top by Richelle Mead

 Several plot lines going on here. Georgina is surprised when an old friend, the incubus Bastien, arrives in Seattle to stay for a while. He has ambitions to compromise the leader of a conservative, family values, anti-gay organization (serious stereotyping, coupled with the idea *spoiler* that all such leaders have latent homosexuality issues). Georgina's coworker, Doug's band suddenly begins to experience amazing success - so much success that I immediately suspected someone of making a deal with the Devil, while Georgina, more familiar with the demonic organization, doesn't suspect a thing for quite a while. Georgina and Seth are trying to date while remaining celibate, so that she doesn't steal his life force through physical contact - even kissing is dangerous for them.

So, Georgina gets to spend much of her time trying to help Bastien with his plot, figure out what's gotten into Doug and his buddies, and try to stay out of bed with Seth. As one might expect in this second novel about our mild-mannered bookselling succubus, there are several very steamy sex scenes, so avoid this series if you're squeamish about these things.

Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead

Mead has created an intriguing character with Georgina Kincaid, succubus. As an immortal creature who absorbs the sexual energy from her "victims", portraying her as a shy and insecure bookstore clerk creates a delicious twist in the story. She also seems to have a conscience, and prefers to only feed off of scumbags, leaving the nice guys of the world alone.

But events force her...hand. Another one of Mead's usual love triangles develops quickly when she first encounters her favorite author, Seth Mortenson, at a book signing at Emerald City bookstore, where she works, and makes an utter fool of herself, then when she meets a mysterious and handsome stranger, Roman, who definitely makes her resolve not to involve nice guys in succubus business...hard to stick to.

For the squeamish, there are two extremely explicit sex scenes in this book, so handle with care.

Like many urban fantasy novels, this is set up as a little bit of a mystery. One of the lesser immortals, a vampire, is killed. Their toughness is legendary, and the only mortals able to do the deed are born vampire slayers, there's either one of those hanging about, or perhaps, as Georgina finds out when she begins to play amateur detective, he has been killed by another immortal. The attacks on immortals continue, and Georgina continues to investigate, even when the arch demon of Seattle tells her to butt out.

While dancing the tango with the two men in her life, Georgina must figure out the puzzle before any more of her fellow immortal friends get killed.

There's some interesting flashbacks to her mortal life, before she made a deal with a demon to become a succubus.

Mead has created an interesting and conflicted heroine, as required, and given her some moral - really, a demon has morals and scruples? - dilemmas to overcome. The whole demonic realm appears to run almost more like a business organization, with quotas for the number of souls corrupted, etc., than like anything remotely theological. A fun concept. We'll have to see where Mead takes it.

Shadow Heir by Richelle Mead

 The result of Eugenie's wild escapades with Kiyo turns out to be twins, who are prophesied to rule both the faerie and human realms as the Storm King's heirs. Those who are opposed to this are hoping to kill her before the twins are born, which makes traveling back and forth between the worlds so she can make her obstetrician appointments a bit dangerous. After one too many attempts, she decides she must go into secret exile until she delivers, so Roland finds her a secret hiding place with a shaman he knows in Huntsville, Alabama. The shaman has a nephew with whom I'm sure Eugenie would develop a love interest, were this series to continue further, but Mead says it's the last one, so we're spared that bout of mad, passionate, graphic sex anyway.

The twins decide to come early, so Eugenie undergoes an emergency C-Section, and they both turn out to be healthy, but require some time in NICU before she can take them "home". Just as she's about ready to do that Roland visits with news that her kingdom and many of the others in the Otherworld are under a spell keeping them in unnatural winter (shades of Narnia!), likely cast by the queen of the Yew Land, Lania?? She decides to return immediately to see if she can save her land, and bands together with Dorian, Kiyo, Jasmine and some of her underlings on a quest to break the White Witch's faerie queen's spell. Since Kiyo tried to kill her and their unborn children, she's not happy about him coming along, but he is Maiwenne's contribution to the cause, so she can't argue about it too much. Her demonic familiar, Volusian, once lived in the Yew Land, and he seems to have unfinished business there which trumps his hatred of Eugenie, so he turns out to be quite helpful in the quest.

The saga does mostly wrap up in this novel, but not so tightly that Mead couldn't bring the series back to life if it were necessary, or inspiration struck. All of the same potential for conflict with other faerie rulers and personal drama still remains, the only thing that's settled - somewhat - is the Storm King's progeny's prophecy.

Iron Crowned by Richelle Mead.

This is the third in the Dark Swan series. Eugenie is in the middle of a war with the ruler of the Rowan Land, after having Katrice's son killed for kidnapping and raping her. Her lover and ally, King Dorian of the Oak Land, urges her to attempt a quest to find the Iron Crown which, according to prophecy, will give the one who possesses it the ability to end the war quickly. So Eugenie sets off with her former lover, the half-kitsune Kiyo, to win the crown and end the war.

After she acquires the crown, she finds out that Dorian has not been entirely truthful with her, and so she renounces her alliance and relationship with him, and rekindles her relationship (to put it very delicately) with Kiyo once more. When the united front she has presented with Dorian against Katrice falls, eventually Eugenie is forced to take drastic steps to end the war, doing the things she swore she didn't want to do.

You know, men are often accused of thinking with their gonads, but this female character of Mead's is worse than most men. I wonder if Mead is trying to surpass Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake's record for total number of wild sex scenes in an urban fantasy novel. If she's merely going for emotionally conflicted heroine, she's not letting Eugenie remain in any particular emotional state long enough to actually fully realize the conflict. I have to agree with her stepfather, Roland, in my utter disapproval of most everything she's done, even with the best intentions, throughout the series.

Ah well, perhaps redemption is on the way in the next installment.

Thorn Queen by Richelle Mead

If you haven't read the first book in the Dark Swan series, Storm Born, this review could contain spoilers regarding certain events in that novel. Thorn Queen picks up Eugenie's tale right after Storm Born. Eugenie is having an interesting time settling in as the ruler of the Thorn Land. On a tour of her land, she discovers a couple of things. First is that the people in her land, accustomed to a more lush environment when Aeson was ruler, are suffering great difficulties in surviving, now that the land has become much like her native Arizona desert. The second is that someone is kidnapping gentry girls from her land, never to be seen again. On these two problems hangs the rest of the tale.

Eugenie tries to show her people how to live in their new land, based on her understanding of how modern technology enables people to live in the Arizona desert, with irrigation techniques and by mining its mineral wealth to trade with other kingdoms for the food and other goods they need. She enlists the aid of a foppish young prince of a neighboring land, Leith, who was born with few magical powers, and so he compensates with what appears to be a natural talent for engineering. He helps her to design an irrigation system for one of her villages. Of course, Leith is hopelessly in love with Eugenie, and his mother, Katrice, has hopes off marrying him off to Eugenie and forming an alliance. Things go rapidly south when Eugenie finally gives him the "just friends" speech.

Eugenie also begins searching for the person or persons who are causing the gentry girls to disappear. The likely culprit seems to be a group of bandits operating nearby. She hunts them down, but has a nasty surprise when it turns out that they have fire demons at their command. Her magical strengths are not sufficient to fight the fire demons, so she has to enlist some help to take them down, including her half sister, Jasmine, who has inherited some of the Storm King's mastery of water magic, and can summon water demons.

A good portion of this novel is about Eugenie finally beginning to accept her heritage and her responsibilities to the gentry land she's come to rule. She fights it, but in the end must submit her own desires to accomplish the greater good for her people. I found it interesting how she learns to work new magics, blending her understanding of things like atoms and molecules with the more intuitive way of imaging the elements that the gentry use.

Once again, a strong female protagonist who is willing (in the end) to grow and change, a couple of gratuitous sex scenes, and some great political intrigue make this a pretty good read. Mead also begins to flesh out some of her supporting characters a bit more, and we begin to suspect that they might even have lives and minds of their own.

Storm Born by Richelle Mead

I read a couple of Richelle Mead's Succubus series books when my friend, Stef, loaned them to me, but haven't really followed the series past that point. I found a couple of books in the Dark Swan series at the library bookstore, and thought they looked entertaining.

The heroine of our series is Eugenie Markham, a woman trained in the shamanic tradition, who owns her own business as an exorcist of sorts. When supernatural beings are bothering people in Arizona, she comes running and sends the creatures back to either the Otherworld - the land of the Gentry, or the Underworld - the land of the dead.
Eugenie is hired by a man to find his lost or kidnapped sister. He believes she has been abducted against her will by the Gentry - Faeries, if you will. Eugenie doesn't like to travel to the Otherworld, as it can be quite dangerous to mortals, but finally decides to go and rescue her.

In the early going, Eugenie becomes involved with a veterinarian named Kiyo, who is darkly attractive and who turns out, eventually, to be a kitsune, kind of like a were-fox. He is actually a half-breed, and has ties both in the Otherworld and the mortal realm. Eugenie has, in the past, bound some spirits to her service, and she ends up taking those servants with her when she journeys to the kingdoms of the Gentry to find out what has become of the girl, Jasmine. Her spies on the other side have told her that Jasmine is being held by Aeson, a king of the Alder land.

She attempts to get Dorian, king of the Oak land and enemy of Aeson's, to help her, but is unwilling to pay his price, so she and her companions try by themselves the first time. Eugenie is in for a rude awakening when she arrives at Aeson's keep. Her attempt at a surprise attack is foiled by a traitor in her group, and she also finds out that she may be the daughter of the Storm King, a gentry lord whose goal was to unite all of their kingdoms and to conquer the mortal realm, as well. When she returns home, her mother confirms that she is, indeed, the Storm King's daughter. Eugenie spends the rest of the book alternately denying her heritage, while discovering that she has the need to use her half-gentry magical talents to confront Aeson again and bring Jasmine home.

An entertaining novel, a very quick read. Has a couple of quite graphic sex scenes, which really weren't all that necessary for plot development. It seems as if Mead is unconsciously mimicking some of the elements of Laurell K. Hamilton's two series' heroines, Merry Gentry and Anita Blake. Is it absolutely necessary that there be a love triangle to make things interesting? I had thought at first that the story wasn't going to take itself very seriously, as Eugenie starts out with a job performing an exorcism on a pair of running shoes, and one of her spirit sidekicks, Nandi, sounds just like Eeyore. Things turn seriously quickly, and she kills off Nandi and her comedy relief in the first violent confrontation. Ah well.