Review: An Action-packed Romp! This series is off to a solid start!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
Three years ago Nevada Hamilton and Jake Troubadour had a one night stand. They haven't seen each other since and have vastly different memories of that night. Now they are both Sin City Collectors, supernatural bounty hunters working for the mysterious "Boss." Collectors always work alone, but they're inexplicably assigned a joint Collection to bring in a powerful vampire. Nevada doesn't have a great track record with vampires, so she could use Jake's help if they'd stop fighting long enough to do the job.I love that Amanda Carlson uses uncommon creatures in this story - Nevada is a dhampir and Jake is a hellhound. She also gets creative with the standard vampire mythos, although I would still like to know more about the vampires in this world than what she touches on here. I also would have liked to see her spend more time building the Collectors' world in general since this is the first book in the series. (But she does a good job of avoiding the info dump and I understand that I probably can't have it both ways.)What I enjoyed most about this story was the action. Jake and Nevada are almost constantly in motion whether they're fighting, scouting for bad guys or riding his motorcycle. There's even a kissing scene that feels action-packed. I especially loved the scene where Jake fights his way out of a closet. But I felt like the pacing was a little awkward after the fighting was over.This is quintessential Amanda Carlson. Fans of her Jessica McClain series are sure to enjoy it and those not familiar with her work will get a good sense of her style. Her next Sin City Collectors novella will feature Diesel and Sofia who were both introduced in Aces Wild. The next installment in the series is Kristen Painter's Queen of Hearts which releases July 1. I'm excited to see which characters pop up in the other stories and how the authors connect them all together.I received an advance copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.