not my thing, this early romance work. it has good characters, and even a good setup for some kind of an occult detective series, but the romance itself is the main thing here, and it's far too shallow and without nuance. check out instead Marjorie Liu's later fantasy work, and her wonderful graphic novel series Monstress. ( )

This book was not for me. I thought that it might be the case but I wanted to try it anyways. I'd never read anything by the author but know of her comic book work and the description of the book sounded so kick butt that I hoped the romance angle would be pretty low key, unfortunately I was wrong. Many times during the book either during an action or when the character's should have taken action, they reflected on their feelings, it really slowed down the pacing.

I think if you like romance or paranormal romance you should ignore this review and give this book a try. The writing is good and I liked many of the elements of the plot. The low number of stars reflects my own preferences.

edit I just reread this and I liked it a lot more the 2nd time, 2 stars bumped up to 3.5. I'm going to read the next book in the series and maybe we can get it up to a solid 4 stars. ( )

This was an entertaining paranormal romance. It introduces an agency - Dirk & Steele - which provides a haven for people who have psychic talents. The agency was apparently formed by Dela Reese's grandparents who are formidable people. Dela is an artist and a weapon maker. Her skills let her interact with metals. She also has the power to block her mind from outside influences.

The story begins with Dela in China and at the Dirt Market looking for interesting things. After bargaining with an old woman for some textiles, she is offered a strange box and is convinced to buy it for a very small amount of money.

After her purchase, she is importuned by a handsome man who gives her the creeps. She manages to escape from him by causing a scene and returns to her hotel. There she examines the box and discovers the way to open it. Much to her surprise, the box contains a tiger shifter who has spent the last 2000 years as a slave to whoever opens the box.

Hari was cursed by someone he calls the Magi and has spent the last 2000 years at the command of whoever opens the box. And he hasn't been owned by nice people. He has killed and been tortured and sexually abused. He has long since learned not to trust anyone who controls him.

But Dela is different. She has no desire to have a slave and becomes the only friend Hari has had since his imprisonment. But the Magi wants to recover Hari's box and Dela has attracted the attention of someone else who wants her dead too.

I liked the story and the cast of characters who are Dela's friends. I liked the romance that developed between Hari and Dela and even liked the love scenes which were not overly graphic. The story was fast-paced.

Further books in this series apparently follow the romances and adventures of many of the characters introduced in this first book. ( )

Read because of a strong recommendation of the author. Personally, I wasn't impressed. I know this title is in a more romance-centric series, which doesn't bode well for quality, and maybe I have some confirmation bias going because of that, but while I found this book fluffy and easily devoured (and I did finish it, so there's that), it has a lot of problems.

1. The plot. Also, closely related, the pacing. A middle 30% of the book doesn't have much going on, really, after a strong start. (I think the characters should have stayed in China, personally.) One antagonist solves that mystery for them, and they do nothing about the other antagonist until he makes another move.

Flimsy intro: mysterious shopkeeper sells mysterious object, only to disappear the next day. Why Dela again? Oh, and pops in to save the characters' asses periodically, so they don't have to try too hard.

Climax: rape threats! Rape threats for everyone! For not especially logical reasons on the part of the villain, who is just evil and power-hungry.

2. The characters. Everyone is a shallow caricature. Dela's friends are a pack of badasses with hearts of gold, but there's no sense of danger to them, even when they're dispatching intruders or talking about Those Mysterious Places they know they can get rid of bodies at. Black Best Friend only really serves as a vehicle to make them meet another shifter (but I see she gets her own book later).

2a. Hari himself is a shallow angst puppet. Forced to do bad things! But only killing and having sex with women. Never raping women or children, no. Just so much death and punishing abuse. Which, yeah right-- he could fight that one kind of command? Also, he was never forced to "service" men? Uh-huh. Okay, so damaged goods...who magically trusts the special new master within an hour of being awakened by her. No PTSD. No trust/commitment issues beyond the flimsy desire to have total privacy when he and Dela first have PIV sex (but handjobs are totes different). So basically typical Romantic Lead: angsty background, inexplicably drawn to the heroine, overly protective to the point of physically stopping the heroine from doing something--including locking her in her room until she starts screaming (though otoh the heroine has typical Put Myself In Danger inclinations). For some reason he repeatedly mentions his masters (and everyone else) fearing him, which...really? There weren't any dismissive, cocky bastards in your list of owners? People who implicitly trusted the binding enchantment? Also adjusted very quickly to the modern world despite last being exposed in the 15th century. And stupid multi-color hair. Shouldn't he, and couldn't he, have looked more like an actual Indian man instead of rainbow hair and a tan? India is never named explicitly but that's gotta be his area of origin.

2b. Dela herself is dropping Canon Sue flags all over. She's a metalsmith but no mention of her being buff or having rough hands? But she's not a girly-girl like those other useless women, naturally. She's just a homely jeans-and-flannel kind of girl (though the only times her clothing is mentioned, that's certainly not what she's in). She swoons when Hari dismisses some other women (feminine, giggly, openly checking him out) as not real women like HER. She is, of course, the first and only woman in 2 millennia who is brave and forthright with him. All the characters have to comment on how brave she is! How kind! Soft but fierce! Legit artist but besties with tough men who love her like a kid sister. So sensitive that she makes knives to sell but is heartbroken that one was actually used to kill. Also, filthy stinking rich (a trust fund that would make Donald Trump weep, as she puts it). She's a loner but with a decent network of friends and family, and even restaurant owners who know and adore her.

3. The interactions and reactions are not really realistic. Re: that knife, everyone (hard men included) are just so shocked and appalled about the murder of a teenager. So unforgivable, killing a child! The ultimate moral event horizon-- except for rape. You know, be pissed that the girl was probably innocent of perpetrating the deeds that drove the murderer to it. And have some sympathy for that murderer, because he did it in revenge for some horrible shit done to him, and none of this calling him a coward, or overwrought accusations--Dela--that he used you to commit murder. No. Maybe if you were a caterer and he deliberately didn't tell you about someone's peanut allergy or something...

So he kills himself and some of the immediate reaction, no joke, is how selfish he was to do it in front of Dela. Not that killing yourself in front of someone is a kind thing, but really? Yes, someone felt pushed to suicide, but let's only talk about how much it hurt our cute blonde heroine. Minor antagonist basically put himself in the fridge. At least Hari had some sympathy, and Dean chimed in as the voice of reason for the second time to point out that things must have sucked for the murder, too.

Also, throughout the story, more heroine-centric behavior. Okay, 7' tall hottie, especially in China, is going to attract some attention, but it seems everyone always has eyes locked on Dela and Hari. They get a little PDA in a dumpling shop and decide to quickly leave because everyone's gone silent, staring at them. Dela suggestively sucks Hari finger at an airport, and all the men in a 20' radius have their eyes glued to her as she saunters off. No. People are not that interested in you, or even your freakishly tall boyfriend. I already mentioned the disgusting suite moment...

4. The Relationship. okay, I know this is the genre, but Hari and Dela are pledging each other eternity within days of meeting. Dela even ponders, what if she can't stand living with him? Giving up her solitude? Which is never mentioned again, even though she also has 4 other guys crashing her place to guard her. That was a good concern! Never to actually be used or mentioned, or explored. At some point, after declarations of undying love and loyalty, the two of you have to pick wall colors and cabinet knobs, too, or decide what kind of culture you're going to raise tiger cubs in. Oh, and they move off to some mountainside wilderness somewhere. Dela, for all her "much loner, very solitude, wow" attitude, liked to get her restaurant on, apparently...have fun with that.

4b. The sex. I misinterpreted the meaning of "shifted" and thought it meant Hari transformed during sex. Haha, oh no, silly me.

And then a page later Dela is literally blowing a tiger.

Eeeww. No, you know what, she is the specialest person to ever special, because while I think these days more random people than not would be compassionate towards Hari, most would probably not exchange oral sex with him while he's an Actual Literal Tiger.

(It's supposed to be emphasizing how Special Dela is for always seeing him as the man he is and not a piece of meat or a monster, but uh...)

In other news, there were a lot of Laurell K. Hamilton-ish aspects to this book, which came out in 2005. I wonder whether Hamilton or Liu got were-bestiality first... Hamilton definitely got the Stupidly Tall Hottie all women, everywhere, yes even you, will assault just to have a chance to touch, while ignoring or glaring at the obvious girlfriend. So...yay?

If I need hyper-fluff again and can't find anything else, I may see if the library has more of these. Otherwise, meh. ( )

So, were-tiger sounded kind of cool to me and it was a Kindle daily deal.

Unfortunately, Dela is a first-order Mary Sue and the male hero is more caveman than "alpha male" in my opinion. ( )