I can clearly recall my complete delight at reading Tracey O'Hara's debut Urban Fantasy novel Night's Cold Kiss a year ago. I was amazed, awestruck, gobsmacked ... well you get the picture ...I loved it!

Book two, Death's Sweet Embrace, is less of an UF and more of a dark paranormal romance, which I didn't understand when I started reading it. It began with a high adrenaline punch, but then the pace slowed,which puzzled me until I understood that the focus of this book was less on action and more on relationships - partners, friends, children and families. Because of this, much more time was needed to set up situations to challenge as well as reveal the characters to us. And Tracey handled this change in approach with connsumate skill.

This is Kitt and Raven's story and even though there is a strong romantic focus, they are surrounded by truly graphic and horrific crimes that keep the energy level running hot.

One problem for me was that quite a deal of attention was placed on the Shadow Game, but this didn't really further the core plot and I would have preferred that more time was spent elsewhere.

Specifically? Well, I think that there should have been more sex!

Yes there was sex, but Kitt and Raven's relationship could have heated up both faster and to a greater degree. And where was Christian? I adored him in NCK, but apart from one quick conjugal visit he was elsewhere doing background investigations. It just seemed that there had been such a buildup in book one that a little more on Antoinette and Christian and on the medical labs, that are sure to be revisited in future books, would have helped to tie these two books together more.

Night's Cold Kiss was darker and more shocking. A second book naturally has less surprises because the worldbuilding and context has already been introduced. Changing the focus from gritty action, to more of a paranormal romantic crime thriller really worked.

I thnk that the secret is to allow these two books to have a different flavour from each other and relax into Tracey O'Hara's capable hands as she weaves what is a dark and fascinating story.

Good writing, diverse well drawn characters, and a balance of crime and romance ... a four star winner!

We’ve come to expect great dynamic writing from Tracey O’Hara after her wonderfully explosive debut “Nights Cold Kiss” hit the scene in 2009, and with the sequel “Death’s Sweet Embrace” she hasn’t let us down.

This is a book of ‘more’, there’s more romance, more steam, more battles, more intrigue and more daring rescues. Although I am happy to say that it works just as well as a standalone novel as it does as  a continuation, as Death’s Sweet Embrace was a self-contained novel it its own right; think  the flow of the series by Kenyon or Ward (without the convoluted plot deviations).

Although Death’s Sweet Embrace took me a little while to get into, as I was trying to ‘pick up’ the story from Nights Cold Kiss, so I spend the first few pages in a state of mild confusion (hence the opinion that this is not a traditional sequel, but a continuation of the world with a blending story arc). Then WAM page 11 and I ‘got’ it, the heart stopped, then tried to leap out of my ribcage, and from then on there was no putting the story down.

Personally, I’m more a vampire girl than a shifter girl, so the shifter based story didn’t appeal to me quite as much as the more dormant vampire themes of the first book, but they were still very well written and cleverly portrayed. However, like the first, I found the new terminology, although accurate, a little distracting from the story itself, so I basically just ignored who was ‘animalian/bestiabeo’, let alone what type they were, it’s something that might work well for the more linguistically intrigued, but for me, it didn’t add any real value to the story, other than as an easy way of saying “this guy turns into a bear (ursian) this one turns into a wolf (canines).”

Antoinette is still kickarse and a favourite character, for all that she takes a secondary role in this story; with the primary characters in this story to be Kitt and Raven (very sexy Raven, with the dark mysterious past... yummo!). Antoinette also gets some of the best imagery

Antoinette wrenched the blade out and the female dreniac folded like a perverted version of a blow-up sex doll with a puncture.

I found Kitt a little ‘wet’, but she balances nicely against Raven, and she does have the odd prod-buttock moment, and the author really does put her through some rather nasty and intense events that would test the staunchest of characters. Ok, I admit it it, I just didn’t get to see enough of Raven, and desperately hope to see more of him in future books (and I mean that in every sense!).

Overall this is another great fun read, that gets more intense as the story develops, with some half expected twists taking you down completely unexpected journeys. I can’t wait for more books in this series to come out; they’re just getting better and better (but no pressure)!