I have yet to see any Buffy episodes, so that comparison doesn’t bother me in the least. I do agree that there are tons of plain romance novels masquerading as paranormals simply by putting a vampire or other supernatural being in one or both lead roles, with resulting poor quality. I’ve read a good few of them this year it would seem, but I thought this was an absolute standout. I gave it a 5-star review on my blog and am hawking it to all my friends.

I did not find Cat to be particularly immature or rather I could see tremendous growth in her character over the course of the book, probably mostly attributable, in my mind, *to* her relationship with Bones. I disagree that the romance angle between them was contrived or distracting. To the contrary, I fell for it hook, line and sinker — loved the two of them together.

If Jeaniene is still reading here, kudos! I absolutely adored this book and am waiting impatiently for the next one (and hoping to goodness that Bones is not going to be absent entirely or significantly from it). Also, if you are reading, I do have some questions. Will we find out more about the biology of how Cat came to be? If Bones is correct and her vampire father was still using residual human sperm that hadn’t yet flushed out of his system, then how was he able to pass on vampire genetic material to his child? I found myself puzzling over that, which seems rather fundamental to the overall premise.