Review: Awaken Me Darkly by Gena Showalter

Title: Awaken Me Darkly (Alien Huntress #1)
Author: Gena Showalter
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Heat Index: 3 out of 5
Release Date: February 28th, 2006
Word/Page Count: 358 pages
Format: Purchased

RIDDING THE WORLD OF EVIL,

ONE ALIEN AT A TIME.

In a time and place not too far away, Mia Snow is an alien huntress for the New Chicago Police Department, and she's the perfect girl for the job. Tough and sexy, she's earned each of her scars battling the elusive enemy among us. Now, investigating a series of killings, she is shaken to the core when a burst of violence leaves her partner Dallas fighting for his life. A tall, erotic stranger holds the power to heal the injured agent -- and to bind Mia in an electrifying and dangerous seduction. He is Kyrin en Arr, of the deadly Arcadian species -- an alien, a murder suspect -- who has Mia walking a knife's edge, risking her badge and even her life. . . and edging closer to a shocking revelation that will shatter everything she's ever believed.

Warning: Not holding back on spoilers. Also, long-winded.


Arai's Review:

First off, I really enjoyed the world-building in this novel. It had a touch of that gritty noir feeling to which I’ll admit a certain weakness. Aliens, all different races, have invaded our universe and are trying to incorporate into our world. I would have liked to have a few more details on how this happened, since there are brief references, but this is never fully touched on.

The story starts off by having Mia, our main character, and her partner Dallas called out to a crime scene. Both are part of AIR which is a group that hunts down aliens who cause harm to humans. We’re told there’s a serial killer, have to catch killer, routine murder mystery stuff to this point. Boss wants an arrest by the next morning even though they’ve had five men killed and no leads. Yeah. Sure, buddy.

Well, Mia suddenly gets a big break in the case because she sees a clue that apparently has been overlooked at all other scenes. This cues us to Lilla, the hero’s sister, both of whom are aliens. Oh, and Mia comes by this info because she can smell things that other people can’t. Instance one of our heroine being different but ignoring it. Now, pay attention to this because it became one of my biggest annoyances in this novel.

Track down Lilla who uses mad mind control skills on Dallas and pretty much everyone she comes in contact with, except Mia. Second instance of Mia being strange and ignoring it. While tracking Lilla, who escapes from them via mad mind skills, Mia gets a vision that someone on her team is going to die tonight. And her visions are always right. Instance number three.

Apprehend Lilla, who attempts to use her mind control some more until they finally knock her out. They also take in George, a fellow AIR agent who was harboring Lilla and has connections to her. George’s character is overdone to make him an asshole. He’s also used dramatically to make Mia look like a badass. It’s a short scene so you can overlook it, but when stacked up at the end with all the other small things that annoy you, they add up fast.

Dallas ends up being the one gravely injured and in steps Kyrin, Lilla’s brother, who has magic healing blood. He’s willing to heal Dallas if Mia sets Lilla the murder suspect free. Cue Mia emotional turmoil moment while Kyrin taps his foot and waits, finally telling her she has four days. Lots of ultimatums being tossed around.

While tracking down more information about this killer, trying to either clear or convict Lilla, Mia ends up finding out incriminating info against Kyrin, has crisis of faith only to be bolstered by Lilla, then finds out the true baddie is this other alien Atlanna. Goes to find her, Kyrin is there, and Mia is suddenly like Neo in the Matrix with super-powered reflexes. Instance number, what are we at, four? Oh, and she ignores this, too, making sure to tell the reader all the details about the event and that she’s going to ignore it. She then pulls a beer towards her with her mind, freaks out, and ignores that. Fifth instance.

Now we’re at the part where Mia thinks it’s a good idea to leak to the media that they’re going to execute Lilla at midnight in an attempt to lure Kyrin to the police station. Kyrin, the guy who has already proved to have mad skills of his own, including disappearing into thin air. But, apparently not when he’s in a building. Alright. I’m not quite sure, but fine, we’ll go along with this. Well, it was a fail and she ends up being kidnapped by him.

Here’s the thing; up to this point, I’d been willing to give the benefit of the doubt and buy in the story. I was enjoying the book, enjoying the plot, and willing to overlook the things that annoyed me. This all got sucked down the tubes right here when Mia wakes up tied up to a bed and changed out of her clothes into some flimsy gown thing. I immediately groaned. This has been seen hundreds of times. I’m pretty sure it’s in some book about romance clichés.

You can try to reason it out, but it still ends up groan-worthy. Sure, she needs to be tied up so she can’t escape. Ok, I can buy that, but do you need to tie her up to your bed? Why not a chair? Oh, sorry, you’re right, that leaves less opportunity for potential sexy times, which is always a kidnapper’s main concern. Never mind the fact that you also have a metal armband on Mia’s arm that will cause her immense pain the moment she leaves the house so tying up is kind of a moot point. And you changed her out of her clothes into a practically see-through gown even though her clothes had nothing wrong with them. Oh, you burned them, too? Yeah, you’re not creepy at all, are you? But, it’s ok because despite the complete lack of sexual tension and build-up, our heroine still wants to smut your brains out.

Thankfully, this isn’t where our sex scene is because I honestly thought that was where this was heading when Mia woke up. Unfortunately, where the sex scene does happen isn’t much better. But we have so much more to cover before then.

Our sixth instance of Mia deciding to just ignore things is when she shoots lasers from her eyes and burns off the hinges of her locked door. Yes. Shoots lasers from her eyes.

A tremor raced down my limbs. I’d pretended the slowdown thing hadn’t happened. I’d pretended the beer incident hadn’t happened, and neither had happened again. This wouldn’t happen again either. Like the others, I’d pretend it had never happened.

Sigh. Instead of working on practicing this skill, maybe enough so you could, oh, I don’t know, melt the pain-inducing metal band off your arm and run, we’re just going to ignore it. Yes, that seems like the best option. Oh, and it’s around this time that we find out our alien lead man Kyrin is over 300 years old. This was written before Twilight, in case you were worried. Besides, he’s not sparkly. He just has violet eyes and white hair, which is exactly how you picture every alien race to look, obviously.

Kyrin shows up as she’s wandering around his big huge house, trying to chat up the servants to find out information. He then says he can tell her what she needs to know about the murders, but she’s not ready to hear about it. Cue pages of filler before he finally tells her. And then cue me ripping my hair out from frustration.
Previous to Kyrin’s information, Mia knows that Atlanna is the bad guy and is killing these men in relation to something to do with fertility. Mia calls her a monster, rages about her for pages, and is pretty much ready to storm out and kill her. Well, then Kyrin tells Mia that Atlanna is really her mother and Mia is the first half-human, half-alien hybrid. Mia refuses to believe him, wants to ignore it (see all previous instances of sticking head in the sand for our badass alien hunter) and has a child-like temper tantrum where she yells ‘no’ and ‘liar’ over and over. Win.

So Kyrin, in his infinite wisdom, shows Mia an amulet that plays a moment when Mia was a baby. Atlanna was holding her and singing a song. That’s it. Kyrin then reminds Mia that he needs her to kill Atlanna because she’s the only one strong enough to do it. At this point, we’ve learned that she’s killed over 30 people on two continents and plans to continue to do so in order to get what she wants.

“Kill my own mother?” I screamed. He actually wanted me to execute my own mother – the woman who sang so sweetly and had called me her greatest treasure?

Five seconds ago you were willing to gun her down on the street but, since you saw a little image of her singing you a song, it’s totally legitimate that she’s murdered several people, destroyed lives, and wants to continue to do so.

Less than five pages later, she smuts Kyrin. Which is what you always do after finding out your mom is a murderer, having a teen temper tantrum, then running out of the house and having a blinding pain shoot through your body from the band on your arm. And if that’s not golden enough, we add this little tidbit:

“Not this way. I want you here. Now. In the daylight. In the snow.”

Does this author not live in a cold-weather climate? First off, yeah, sure, ice play can work. Snow on your back, your ass, encasing your body? Not so much. Second, for there to be snow on the ground, it has to be a maximum of thirty degrees Fahrenheit out. There’s no mention of this alien being from a cold climate so I’m going to assume his erection would respond to these temps the same as any other man’s in that it would not be a happy little cock. Well, at least not happy as it shriveled up in the man’s body to try and hide from frostbite.

The rest of the book ends in a rush that felt ill-prepared and not quite thought out, especially in comparison to the careful pacing of the first half of the novel. I’ll probably read the second one, but that’s going to be for the world/universe, definitely not for the characters.