I said in my last post that I’d downloaded some “research” for my upcoming NaNoWriMo attempt. Thus far, my research has consisted of Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead.

Georgina Kincaid is a squillion year old succubus who doesn’t really enjoy leeching the life out of innocent (and the not so innocent) mortals for her job. The book begins with her hanging out with some paranormal mates and then going to her mortal job and fangirling out embarrassingly over her favourite author, who, as it naturally turns out, happens to be the dude she’s confessing her carnal desires to. She then gets caught up in a murder mystery as someone begins to pick off supposedly unkillable supernatural types.  Enter some love interests to complicate things.  Roman is so insistent on dating her, coming off as totally creepy in the process but he’s attractive as all getout and can speak Latin, so he apparently gets a free pass and Seth, the writer, can’t seem to communicate without sounding like a nerdy adolescent or a nerdy adolescent on some liquid courage.  Throughout all of this, she remains resolute in her promise to not date people because she doesn’t want to “hurt them” yet does a remarkably good job of coming across like a total nutcase by running hot and cold every three seconds. Georgina is kind of a doofus for a thousand or so year old person and totally clueless about the paranormal for some unfathomable reason so she’s about the last person to figure out who the baddie is.

Despite it sounding like I’m a bit critical, I didn’t mind the book. It was well written, well paced and humourous at times. I think it had a lot of potential to be better than it was. I liked that it wasn’t full of gratuitous sex or another wimpy woman lusting after some mystical but emotionally distant dude. I would have been more interested in some more hell-dimension type stuff and a more detailed explanation of the demonic hierarchy and exactly why getting dressed up for some kinky sex like a winged demon is to be ridiculed (although I did find it amusing that it was). At least, that’s what I’m looking for in a paranormal book – because I can see the potential for snark and sarcasm with all the infighting and demonic nature to spread mischief and the like. Either way, I would give the second book a shot because it was still enjoyable even if it wasn’t totally what I was looking for.