Review: Souljacker by Yasmine Galenorn

So I gave this author another try and have come to the conclusion that she might not be for me.

Souljacker by Yasmine Galenorn (Book #1 in Lily Bound Series)
Paranormal Fiction
Audiobook
Released March 2017
Amazon ♦ Goodreads

Lily O'Connell, a succubus, has put her unique talents to work. She owns Lily Bound, an elite sex salon in the Blood Night District of Seattle. When a client turns up dead in her club, and she hears the news that the Souljacker-an old tattoo-artist friend-turned-vampire, who was institutionalized years before-has escaped to reclaim his "artwork," Lily knows she's next on his list. With one of his tattoos on her thigh and nowhere else to turn, Lily hires Archer Desmond, a chaos demon and PI, to track the vampire down before he tracks her. But she didn't expect to fall for Archer-and they say a succubus who falls in love will destroy the heart of the one she seeks to claim... 

My Thoughts

 

Lily is a succubus who staves off the hunger and makes her living by running a sex salon. The book opens when she discovers one her best werewolf clients dead in a bed, drained of blood and missing a hunk of flesh.

The vamps in this book are not of this ilk.

They are mean, they are hungry and some of them are batshit crazy. These vampires are monsters, just as it should be. Sadly, they do not make much of an appearance. There are a few dead bodies here and there but we don’t get to spend any time in their heads. Such a missed opportunity. I love being in a madman’s head, if only for a short time.

Because of the dead guy in her bed, Lily’s life is turned upside down and inside out. She loses her livelihood, is targeted by madman and an angry widow bent on revenge and she’s getting dangerously hungry for some chi and sexy time. When she realizes her best friends are also in danger, they enlist the help of a chaos demon who is a most excellent PI and handily enough, very good at the sexy times.

This started out as a whole lot of murderous and sexy fun but somewhere along the way it lost me. It became dull. Nothing much happened for chapters on end. There was much talk about sigils and security and blah, blah, blah. At this point, I even began to start longing for one of these guys to pop in and woo somebody to death just so something would happen.

Really the only thing keeping me reading was the sexy chaos demon. I kept waiting for him to create some major, you know, chaos but I may have to wait until the next book for that happen. It wasn’t even what I’d call a paranormal romance because there was no romance development here either.

There was an engaging little side-story about Lily’s enchanted cat. If the rest of the book has been as interesting as the cat’s backstory I would’ve gobbled this book up. But as written, most of the characters were a little flat and not fleshed out nearly enough for me. There was no emotion, very little action and there wasn’t even any humor. It was all just a bit too tepid for my liking. I tried another of this author’s books years ago, Witchling I believe it was, and I didn’t like that one very much either so maybe it’s me and my atrocious taste again.

Ah well, I may pick up book two because I do realize this book was the first in a series and much setup needed doing. Hopefully it has more sizzle and less fizzle than this one.

Narration Notes: This audiobook was read competently by Cassandra Campbell who she gives each character their own distinctive voice, none of them cringy, and I always appreciate that because I’m sure it’s not easy.

I received a copy of this audiobook from Tantor Media. Thanks Tantor!

A Galenorn Book I Did Not Like (but I'm a jerk, so you might)