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Gena Showalter
Savor Me Slowly (Alien Huntress, Book 3)
Simon & Schuster Pocket Star

A beautiful, newly discovered alien race is spreading a virus that turns its victims into cannibals, in the third part of Gena Showalter’s Alien Huntress series.

They’re called the Schön, and both Alien Investigation and Removal and Mishka Le’Ace’s boss want them investigated, captured and killed. As always with this series, the world-building is outstanding and the Schön case is intriguing…but it’s only a subplot. And if you’d read the back cover copy, you wouldn’t know about this storyline at all.

Savor Me Slowly is clearly a futuristic romance – with emphasis on the romance. It’s worth reading for the aliens and investigation, but my word the characters are annoying. I had no issue with A.I.R. agent Jaxon Tremain in Awaken Me Darkly, in which he was a secondary character. But bringing him to the forefront and giving him romance changes his personality – and jeopardises the case he’s investigating. And puts him at odds with his fellow agents, who rightfully tell him to pull his head out of his arse. Of course he doesn’t take their wise advice because God forbid anyone in love to do anything intelligent.

Mishka Le’Ace is part machine, with a metal arm and a chip in her brain that keeps her informed…but also gives her pain if she doesn’t follow her boss’s orders. Clearly she needs liberation and independence – but instead shags Jaxon. Though it kind of makes sense (she just wants to be loved and experience multiple orgasms, oh my!), it will piss off non-romance readers who were hoping for an in-depth exploration of aliens on Earth, their motivations, and how they interact with humans and other alien races.

The Schön only get minor screen time (in which they’re killed), and as for the Delenseans who were torturing Jaxon in the first place…why were they doing so? And why didn’t they reappear later? Because it was to hook readers in with action, but really just to have Jaxon and Le’Ace meet. And are instantly attracted.

I love the world-building this series has to offer, but the characters…leave a lot to be desired. Not with their shagmates, of course. But otherwise.

Review by Tez Miller

Tags | modern-horror, sci-fi-horror, urban fantasy