Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead

Title: Succubus Blues	Loved it	Graded
Author: Richelle Mead
Genre: Paranormal
Publisher: Kensington
Elements: -
Series: Book 1 of a series

Succubus (n.) An alluring, shape-shifting demon who seduces and pleasures mortal men. Pathetic (adj.) A succubus with great shoes and no social life. See: Georgina Kincaid.

When it comes to jobs in hell, being a succubus seems pretty glamorous. A girl can be anything she wants, the wardrobe is killer, and mortal men will do anything just for a touch. Granted, they often pay with their souls, but why get technical?

But Seattle succubus Georgina Kincaid's life is far less exotic. Her boss is a middle-management demon with a thing for John Cusack movies. Her immortal best friends haven't stopped teasing her about the time she shape-shifted into the Demon Goddess getup complete with whip and wings. And she can't have a decent date without sucking away part of the guy's life. At least there's her day job at a local bookstore--free books; all the white chocolate mochas she can drink; and easy access to bestselling, sexy writer, Seth Mortensen, aka He Whom She Would Give Anything to Touch but Can't.

But dreaming about Seth will have to wait. Something wicked is at work in Seattle's demon underground. And for once, all of her hot charms and drop-dead one-liners won't help because Georgina's about to discover there are some creatures out there that both heaven and hell want to deny...

Georgina Kincaid is a succubus, but not an ordinary one. Reading her job description, it might sound fun to some (and degrading to others) but she doesn't really like what she does. A succubus with a high moral factor. That's not something you read everyday, especially when the book is from her point of view.

It's easy to like Georgina. As a succubus, Georgina is an adept. She goes around introducing herself as "Georgina the Succubus" to other otherworldly patrons the same way I go "I'm Liyana a student" as if it's a totally normal thing. And for her, it is. She moonlights as a bookstore employee, where she meets Seth, her favourite author and soon to be boyfriend.

This is the first book I've read where the heroine sleeps with multiple characters-- none of which is her boyfriend who doesn't know her true nature.

Ahh, the cruelty of being a succubus! To be able to sleep with everyone but the one that you love. It was refreshing to see that her One True Love wasn't going to be her none and only *snicker*, but at times the well written sex scenes were emotionally uncomfortable.

At times, I find myself comparing Georgina to Mead's other heroines: Rose Hathaway from the Vampire Academy series and Eugenie Markham from the Dark Swan series. They are very similar, at times disturbingly so. Sure, they aren't interchangeable. In fact, if you did put these heroines in the other series' settings, they'll freak out and so some serous damage. Richelle Mead has the talent of writing strong characters who are sexy, successful, supernatural women put into diffcult situations and undergoing a major change in their lives. However, while this is a particular trademark of hers, she has to watch that they are not made too similar, because it could seem that she's writing about different variations of one particular personality, albeit with different motivations.

Out of her two adult series, I enjoyed reading the Georgina Kincaid books more. The romantic plot and actiony subplots are wonderfully intermeshed and simply written. The tone was not too short, nor too purple prosy. The fight scenes were vivid, the sex scenes made me blush and the whole book made me tear up, tremble with anticipation and giggle at inopportune times. Overall, a good start to a series which has a lot of potential.