Succubus Blues - Richelle Mead

i have a pile of books on load from Jenn, i have one that Suzuki gave me for my birthday that i want to reread, the bottomless bag, and of course my own collection which seems to keep growing with each week…. mainly i have determined that i need to trade of stacks off books after each book is complete so that no single source of writing becomes stale or unused.

i began digging through Janneke’s big bag of books, attempting to determine what i would bury my nose into next. pushing past the ones i have already read (i should really make that pile on its own), i found Succubus Blues written by Richelle Mead.. plain light blue stock cover. no summary or synopsis. no information about the author. it was your typical uncorrected work print, but actually contained less information than average. this is my favorite way to read a book.

with no tag lines, personal recommendations or mentions of how good something is by mention of awards. no summary means no spoilers. it was fresh and ready for a hungry reader. the pages were rough pulp and cleanly cut. i knew absolutely nothing about this story, not even if the writer was previously published. she had a clean? area to thrown down her words, and i was ready for this book. 15 pages into it, i could see it was one i would not be putting down.

Georgina is the protagonist of this story. she is 400 years old and is working in a Seattle bookstore. centuries before she sold her soul for a favor and in exchange she was given a life of servitude as a Succubus, damning the souls of humans and shortening the lives of evil men. I say evil men, because Georgina has scruples, she will only take life force from dirty men, men with something weighing on them.

These same scruples seems to hold her back from her modern potential as a Succubus. She wants for love but it is always out of reach as all she could ever do is hold hands with a man she cared for, kissing him or making love could kill him and would surely damn him. even if that were not the case, all she could really look forward to is watching him waste away as she failed to age over the years… seems like a standard immortal stereotypical storyline eh? well, not the case. this book is written in just the right way to make sure the story does not come across common or blas?.

it helps that the book is filled with a plot line that supersedes her desire to be able to connect to an undamned human. someone is hunting immortals in Seattle, and they leaver her cryptic notes forcing her to play ‘duck duck goose’ with her emotions and then run in circles attempting not to get caught by a killer, reprimanded by her boss (both in the bookstore or her demonic superior), and avoid ruining her good clothes. sure, she could just shape shift away a ruined pair of heels with something new and classy, but damn it! she spent good money looking good. shape shifting is too damn easy for a woman with an appearance to maintain.

this book is the first in a series about Georgina, book two will come out in January of 2008 (and i will be there in the store buying it) and a third is slated for sometime fall of 2008.

more information at the authors website http://richellemead.com/
or her live journal account for updates, contests and commentary http://blue-succubus.livejournal.com/

personally i would be incredibly happy if Richelle were to step into the Wordstock world and make appearances at least locally this year, Seattle is not that far from Portland and it would give me yet another reason to go again this year, not that i really need reasons, i would go anyway just to wander and press the flesh. her presence for a small boot, a lecture, or a QA session would make me grin ear to ear though.

the cover shown on the top is from the UK release of the book

on the bottom you have the US version

i have no preference between them as i preferred not having an image on the cover. it was perfect in its plainness. no artist driven images to get in the way of the descriptions given by Mead.