Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1)
Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a book I picked up purely on the basis of my love of the author's "Dark Swan" series. My pre-reading impression was that Georgina relished the evil part of being a succubus. I couldn't have been further from the truth.
In another century, under another name, Georgina was human. She cheated on her husband and saw him on the verge of suicide. So her deal with the devil was to spare her husband the memory of her infidelity, to spare him of any memory of her at all. In exchange, she became an immortal succubus. To survive, she must drain men of their life energy. And her demon supervisor would be all so pleased if she signed over some good men to their side, while she's at it.
But lately Georgina has trying to feed on the dregs of society, which leads to a very lonely existence. Anyone she really has feelings for, she can't be with, for fear of draining them fatally. So, as the book opens, we meet modern day Georgina, a bookstore manager, pining over her favorite author and otherwise hanging out with a couple of vampires and an imp.
Those who like their good and evil to be black and white might not like this universe where angels and demons can be the best of friends and which side of the fence you fall on is less a matter of core morality and more a matter of where fate leads you. I like my urban fantasy with shades of grey, so it worked for me.
Love the depiction of Seth, the introverted best selling author Georgiana is crushing on. As an introvert myself, I can assure you the "more eloquent in writing" thing is entirely accurate. Introverts can be witty in person, but they really do need to warm up to you first. Seth makes a perfect foil for Georgiana and, despite Georgiana's "complication", I was pulling for a relationship as much as they were.
As for the baddie killing off supernatural creatures on both sides of the fence, I did figure out "who done it" before Georgiana, but not by much. And he too fit the "not so black and white" definition of things. Lots of shades of grey.
This is a closed universe. As a succubus, Georgiana has the ability to shape shift - from changing her features slightly, to appearing as a different person, to shifting into an animal form. Obviously the greater the shift, the greater the energy expenditure, so mostly she uses it for slight changes to her features. The vampires we see are fairly typical vampires, I believe. This is my first book with an imp. He's sort of the "deal with the devil" bookie. And then there is Georgiana's demon supervisor and his "slumming" angel buddy. In this universe, all supernatural creatures start off as human, except for the arch demons and angels.
Hmmmm, if you didn't guess by now, I loved this book and I'm cursing the weekend and holiday that are making my 2 day shipping (on the next book) take like 4 days. Come on Mr. UPS man.
P.S. This is a six book closed ended series where all six books have been published. The only waiting I will have to do is if I want all six books from the same imprint with the same cover scheme. At the moment, only the first three have been reprinted, and you know how I hate mixing my cover schemes.