Review: Raunchy Repo Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 4, 2013
3.5 starsLucid Montgomery needs to find a job. She's convinced herself that's what sane people do, so if she can hold down a job, she must be sane despite her "symptoms." Her imaginary friend Hitch (also known as those symptoms) is not so sure that a job is the answer. He tricks her into going speed dating, where she meets Wade. The two of them start to make out in the alley behind the event until Luce calls it off. Despite her attraction to Wade, she's not sure that's appropriately sane behavior.The next morning, Luce goes to her job interview at the Parts Department, which she thinks repairs cars. When she gets there she finds not only Wade, but a drunk nun and a cast of eccentric cubicle dwellers, and not a car part in sight. It turns out the Parts Department "repossesses" organs from transplant recipients when the donor is found, a little too late, to have been possessed by a demon. (Demons can split their consciousness in order to possess multiple victims and can hide in the organs of the dead.) Luce was selected for the job by a man she thought was a headhunter, though I'm still not sure what his actual job is, and is to be Wade's new partner.Wade resists his feelings for Luce because he says getting involved with him will make her a target for demons. His last partner was killed by a demon, only the latest in a long line of those close to him. Luce also thinks he resists because he read her file and knows about her long history of mental illness. In fact, everyone at the Parts Department seems to have read her file and may know more about her past than she does. Regardless of his motivations, Wade runs hot and cold toward Luce enough to keep me from warming up to him as much as I did to Luce. She says exactly what she's thinking, which is usually something raunchy. Her voice is reminiscent of Henry's Amanda Feral, but with the added insecurity from constantly questioning her sanity (and thankfully without the footnotes.)Their first case takes them to a strip club catering to some really unusual clients. Wade auditions to be a stripper wearing a diaper, which is just the tip of the fetish iceberg. The scenes in the club are exactly what we expect from Mark Henry, sick and twisted andhilarious.I really wanted to love this book. The premise is original and the characters are interesting, but the story was slow to get moving for me. I wish the backstories were a little more fleshed out, especially Wade's. And the copy editing is atrocious. All of Luce's snark and fabulousness just couldn't quite make up for that. Still, the concept and the supporting cast intrigue me enough that I will probably check out the rest of the series.