Nichole - Dirty H if you're nasty

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by this book. I have given all the Riley books 3 stars, but there was always something innately compelling about them that kept me reading. And I probably will still continue to read them, but this one lacked that certain je ne sais quoi.

I gave this a lot of thought while reading, and I think I figured out what it was. It's actually a combination of a few things.

1. While Riley has always been the central focus of the series, there was something about the other books that felt a touch more collaborative. Whereas in this book, she's pretty much by herself the entire time. There's not nearly enough Rhoan, Liander or Quinn in this book, and Kade barely makes a cameo.

2. Quinn and Riley are finally making a go of things. They are attempting to be monogamous, and are so far successful and very happy together. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate very well. As long as we've all been waiting for Quinn and Riley to finally just be together, it's kind of boring. Quinn plays no part in this book other than to satisfy Riley's full moon needs, and I think it would have been a better book if we'd gotten to see a more three-dimensional Quinn.

3. This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but all the things that irked me and rubbed me wrong about the series up until now - namely Riley's rampant horniness and penchant for nudity - are missing from this book, and I felt their lack. Riley's constant nudity was always distracting to me if for no other reason than that I was pretty sure she was going to hurt herself, and being a large chested girl myself, I know that it's not quite that easy to run around and get in fights with the girls loose. But apparently Riley's nakedness and public sex with random strangers added a certain zip to these books that left this one feeling a little lackluster.

4. The mystery itself was kind of blah. Riley's out solving a new crime, and it was sort of interesting at first, but the wrap up was really anticlimactic and predictable and yadda yadda. I did enjoy the zombies, though.

And finally, this isn't one of the things that made the book less than exciting, but it's something that bothered me.

And also why this review contains spoilers. Be warned!

Riley finally finds her wolf soul mate, an assassin named Kye that we apparently met in a previous book but I don't remember. He's kind of hanging around the whole time because he's also working Riley's case, apparently on behalf of a friend who was the father of one of the victims. Riley warns him off the case because he's not Directorate. He doesn't listen.

What bothered me was this. Riley spends the whole book saying how she doesn't like him, and when she discovers that he's her mate, she's really upset because she doesn't want him to be.
Now, the idea of this was great. I think having Riley's soul mate turn out to be someone she has no interest in was really interesting and a great twist to the series. However, Arthur does a piss poor job of explaining why Riley doesn't like Kye. In fact, she never gives a reason at all other than that Riley doesn't like that he's a killer for hire. And in fact, when they're working together toward the end, they make a really great team. So what the heck?
I can understand Riley resisting Kye because she's trying to be monogamous with Quinn. I'm cool with that. But she always told Quinn that she was still looking for her wolf mate, so what's the problem? This was a story element that could have been so much better but just left me kind of scratching my head and saying "but why?"

Overall, a very blah book and a disappointing addition to the series, though I'm sure I'll keep reading.