Dancing With The Devil by Keri Arthur

Dancing With The Devil (Nikki and Michael, #1)

by Keri Arthur

Private Investigator Nikki James grew up on the tough streets of Lyndhurst and believes there is nothing left to surprise her. That changes the night she follows teenager Monica Trevgard and becomes a pawn caught in a war between two very different men. One fills her mind with his madness; the other pushes his way into her heart. Nikki knows how dangerous love can be but, if she wants to survive, she must place her trust in a man who could destroy her.

For 300 years, Michael Kelly has existed in the shadows, learning to control the death cravings of a vampire. Nikki not only breaches his formidable barriers with her psychic abilities, but makes Michael believe he may finally have found a woman strong enough to walk by his side and to ease the loneliness in his heart.

Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on

1 of 5 stars

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Good God this book was boring.

Seriously, I did not expect this. The "heroes" kept getting into traps, nearly dying, failing and in pain. Rinse and repeat. It got old real quick. Even scenes one would normally classify as action scenes were dull and dry without an ounce of soul.

And let's just take a second to lament how dumb someone has to be to fall into traps over and over and over again. At a certain point, couldn't you try to put a trap of your own? Or do something, anything, to counter attack?? Seriously, it's been 5 years since I read this book and I am still angry about it...

Now, on top of all this, a lot of parts made absolutely no freaking sense. Michael, who is the male protagonist, literally found the whereabouts of villainous-dude Jasper about half a dozen times throughout the book. But then, those scenes ended in fade-to-blacks paired with some inane notion like "it's time for the hunter to become the hunted"... which never played out. The next time we see our "heroes", nothing has changed and Jasper is still at large. Why is this even in the story?

Then, there was the Case of the Vanishing Injuries. These guys... they get hurt. Often. Like, hit by a car kind of hurt. And then... it's mentioned maybe once, and is forgotten until the next time they get injured. That's not how these things work, book!

But at the end of the day, it was the characters that made this book suck ass. More specifically... it was Nikki. I disliked how scared she was, all the time. It's human to be afraid, but having that be your one single emotion is just frustrating. But I could deal with that. I could even kind-of-maybe-sort-of deal with her utter uselessness, even though it's one of my pet peeves in books, especially when the girl is so heavily gifted. Like, you've got everything working for you to be a key character in the story, and instead, you are just a damsel in distress.

But I only started actually hating her later in the story. On the one hand, she did not want Michael to go and on the other she was so darn annoying, refusing to trust him because of something someone else did, being anti-vampires in general, accusing Michael of dumb things and just looking for something wrong about him. And then, when he does leave, she regrets it. Girl, you deserve to have your ass deserted and left to fend for yourself. Yes, you will die within a minute because you are that useless but at this point, I don't even give a fuck.

Now, clearly, considering the former paragraph... I wasn't a huge fan of the romance. It wasn't very believable, at any case. I have no idea why this two fell for each other. I mean, why would anyone fall for Nikki??? And naturally, the "I love you"s came out of nowhere. Because that's the kind of novel this is...

One of the most disappointing things about this novel was actually the writing. I had been excited to read a Keri Arthur novel when I picked this up. I heard a lot about them, after all. Sadly, I was very underwhelmed by it. There was just nothing about it, and as I said before - boring as hell.

Okay, wait, time for a positive thing about this novel!... It ended and I was able to move on to better reads. LOL.


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Original Review
To Read this review and more go to my blog; Drugs Called Books!

This review will not be divided into sections, simply because I can't be bothered. In the end, I was just glad I was done with this book, and sad I ever spent 8 pounds for it.

This book was filled with dull moments. I mean, even the parts presenting themselves as action were boring. The heroes kept getting into traps and nearly dying, never succeeding, always in pain… it gets boring, real fast. Plus, how stupid can you be – always falling into traps? Couldn't they put up a trap of their own, at a point? I'd have liked them better for it.

Some parts really made no sense. Michael, the male main character of this story, found the whereabouts of the villain about half a dozen times, always ending with fade-to-black and some obscene notion "it's time for the hunter to become the hunted" and stuff like that, but when we came back to him – Jasper (the "evil dude") was still at large, Michael had done nothing to him and suddenly had to look all over again for him – WTF? Why didn't he do anything when he found him, killed him right there and then? And then suddenly you expect us to believe it's very difficult to find Jasper?...

Then there were the...

To read the rest of this review, go here!

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  • Started reading
  • 27 September, 2012: Finished reading
  • 27 September, 2012: Reviewed