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kathydavie's review against another edition
1.0
First in the Nikki and Michael urban fantasy series based in Lyndhurst, America and revolving around a psychic who wields energy and an avenging vampire.
My Take
This was so bad that I kept hoping the heroine would die. How sad is that? Too much melodrama for me with a "ooh, I gotta prove myself" heroine willing to take the stupidest risks. Gag. Actually, to be fair, there are chunks of "real", I just wish the chunks of melodrama were in someone else's story.
Yeah, let's rush into the tunnel, rush off to hunt down Monica, rush off to track down the dream. The one that she refused to tell Michael and Jake about to teach him a lesson. Yup, on-the-job training for dummies. They should get T-shirts. They could each say "I'm with Stupid".
Arthur does all this lead-up about how awful Nikki feels because someone she knew died. That she allowed to die, and it's why she can't not follow Monica now. Yet, when we learn about the past incident that affects her so badly, I'm thinking WTF? WHY does she feel any guilt? Well, other than what Arthur believes is necessary to establish that Nikki is a sweet, bleeding heart idiot?
The obligatory love scene in which one party wants it and the other party is trying to be noble. Snore...
Nikki needs to make up her mind. She doesn't want to live, she does want to live, she doesn't want eternity, she's worried he'll die and so will she. She would have died if he hadn't done what he did. So she's already living on borrowed time. Every day she has now is a gift. Shut up already! Hmmm, why is it we (I) claim to want reality, but when I get it, I whine? It's perfectly natural for Nikki to be confused at this point. Really. And still, it's annoying. A bit of reality to keep in mind when you're writing your own stories.
The Story
It's a rock and a hard place as Nikki realizes her prey knows she's there. That she's leading Nikki onward for a purpose. It's one lamb leading another to the slaughter for the vampire who has "acquired" Monica desires her assets and those that are peculiar to Nikki.
He wants power and if he can achieve it by torturing and killing...all the better.
The Characters
Nikki James manipulates kinetic energy. After her mother died, her family refused to take her in, unable to deal with her abilities. Jake Morgan is her private investigator boss; Mary is his wife.
Michael Kelly is a psychic vampire assigned to guard Nikki James. He's employed by the Damask Circle to hunt down evil. Elizabeth is the vampire who turned him, leaving behind a father, mother, brother Patrick, and four sisters in an Ireland of several hundred years ago. Seline is a psychic witch and Michael's supervisor.
Detective Col MacEwan used to arrest Nikki during her street years; now he's almost a friend on the force.
Monica Trevgard is a spoiled little rich girl always getting into trouble and expecting her long-suffering daddy, John Trevgard, to bail her out.
Jasper Harding and his twin brother were both vampire and animator, able to raise the dead. He was a psychopath even before he was turned after the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco.
The psychic Tommy led the street gang that took Nikki in.
The Cover
The cover is red with a drifting fog and Nikki crouched before a wrought iron fence.
The title is true enough for Nikki finds herself Dancing With the Devil.
My Take
This was so bad that I kept hoping the heroine would die. How sad is that? Too much melodrama for me with a "ooh, I gotta prove myself" heroine willing to take the stupidest risks. Gag. Actually, to be fair, there are chunks of "real", I just wish the chunks of melodrama were in someone else's story.
Monica's walked out of the morgue and Nikki knows it's her fault. That she has to fix this. So, naturally, when Michael tells her to wait for him---you know, the man who told her what would happen and whom she refused to believe?---that she has no idea what can happen or how to deal with the new Monica, she just has to ignore him and rush in. 'Cause it'll be so much more fun and dramatic...ggggaaaaggggggggg...
Yeah, let's rush into the tunnel, rush off to hunt down Monica, rush off to track down the dream. The one that she refused to tell Michael and Jake about to teach him a lesson. Yup, on-the-job training for dummies. They should get T-shirts. They could each say "I'm with Stupid".
Arthur does all this lead-up about how awful Nikki feels because someone she knew died. That she allowed to die, and it's why she can't not follow Monica now. Yet, when we learn about the past incident that affects her so badly, I'm thinking WTF? WHY does she feel any guilt? Well, other than what Arthur believes is necessary to establish that Nikki is a sweet, bleeding heart idiot?
The obligatory love scene in which one party wants it and the other party is trying to be noble. Snore...
Nikki needs to make up her mind. She doesn't want to live, she does want to live, she doesn't want eternity, she's worried he'll die and so will she. She would have died if he hadn't done what he did. So she's already living on borrowed time. Every day she has now is a gift. Shut up already! Hmmm, why is it we (I) claim to want reality, but when I get it, I whine? It's perfectly natural for Nikki to be confused at this point. Really. And still, it's annoying. A bit of reality to keep in mind when you're writing your own stories.
The Story
It's a rock and a hard place as Nikki realizes her prey knows she's there. That she's leading Nikki onward for a purpose. It's one lamb leading another to the slaughter for the vampire who has "acquired" Monica desires her assets and those that are peculiar to Nikki.
He wants power and if he can achieve it by torturing and killing...all the better.
The Characters
Nikki James manipulates kinetic energy. After her mother died, her family refused to take her in, unable to deal with her abilities. Jake Morgan is her private investigator boss; Mary is his wife.
Michael Kelly is a psychic vampire assigned to guard Nikki James. He's employed by the Damask Circle to hunt down evil. Elizabeth is the vampire who turned him, leaving behind a father, mother, brother Patrick, and four sisters in an Ireland of several hundred years ago. Seline is a psychic witch and Michael's supervisor.
Detective Col MacEwan used to arrest Nikki during her street years; now he's almost a friend on the force.
Monica Trevgard is a spoiled little rich girl always getting into trouble and expecting her long-suffering daddy, John Trevgard, to bail her out.
Jasper Harding and his twin brother were both vampire and animator, able to raise the dead. He was a psychopath even before he was turned after the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco.
The psychic Tommy led the street gang that took Nikki in.
The Cover
The cover is red with a drifting fog and Nikki crouched before a wrought iron fence.
The title is true enough for Nikki finds herself Dancing With the Devil.
laureenreads's review against another edition
Dancing with the Devil is the first book in the Nikki and Michael series. Nikki is a street-smart private investigator with a touch of magic to help her complete her job. Michael is an old vampire with an agenda, and for right now that agenda includes saving Nikki from herself–or, rather, from the big bad vampire at the other end of Nikki’s latest case. Because Michael and this other vampire have a history together it’s not that difficult a decision to stick around and make sure the job is done right.
(More.)
(More.)
ranforingus's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know what I was expecting from this book, as I only briefly skimmed over the synopsis in the back.
This was a pretty good story, with drama and some actual tense moments, but at the same time, I had trouble really getting into it. After getting about halfway (and screeching at our heroine to 'use your brain! Think logically!'), I only read about twenty pages a day, which is a staggering drop for me.
It's not that the story was lacking in suspense or action (and I love the 'shady' parts of Michael :D), it's just that it felt like I'd read it all before. Some twists were genuinely good, and Jasper as a villain was... okay. But the entire book felt... rushed and rife with clichés by the end. And I didn't like our protagonist Nikki as much as I thought. She was quite annoying to be honest, and while I understand how she might have become that way, it's not a good thing when you want to slap the MC and yell at them to use their brains.
I'm still going to read the other books when I get to them, because I'm a glutton for stories, but it's not going to be for a while (massive backlog on TBR's...)
Over and Out!
This was a pretty good story, with drama and some actual tense moments, but at the same time, I had trouble really getting into it. After getting about halfway (and screeching at our heroine to 'use your brain! Think logically!'), I only read about twenty pages a day, which is a staggering drop for me.
It's not that the story was lacking in suspense or action (and I love the 'shady' parts of Michael :D), it's just that it felt like I'd read it all before. Some twists were genuinely good, and Jasper as a villain was... okay. But the entire book felt... rushed and rife with clichés by the end. And I didn't like our protagonist Nikki as much as I thought. She was quite annoying to be honest, and while I understand how she might have become that way, it's not a good thing when you want to slap the MC and yell at them to use their brains.
I'm still going to read the other books when I get to them, because I'm a glutton for stories, but it's not going to be for a while (massive backlog on TBR's...)
Over and Out!
nitzanschwarz's review against another edition
1.0
Good God this book was boring.
Seriously, I did not expect this. The "heroes" kept getting into traps, nearly dying, failing and in pain. Rinse and repeat. It got old real quick. Even scenes one would normally classify as action scenes were dull and dry without an ounce of soul.
And let's just take a second to lament how dumb someone has to be to fall into traps over and over and over again. At a certain point, couldn't you try to put a trap of your own? Or do something, anything, to counter attack?? Seriously, it's been 5 years since I read this book and I am still angry about it...
Now, on top of all this, a lot of parts made absolutely no freaking sense. Michael, who is the male protagonist, literally found the whereabouts of villainous-dude Jasper about half a dozen times throughout the book. But then, those scenes ended in fade-to-blacks paired with some inane notion like "it's time for the hunter to become the hunted"... which never played out. The next time we see our "heroes", nothing has changed and Jasper is still at large. Why is this even in the story?
Then, there was the Case of the Vanishing Injuries. These guys... they get hurt. Often. Like, hit by a car kind of hurt. And then... it's mentioned maybe once, and is forgotten until the next time they get injured. That's not how these things work, book!
But at the end of the day, it was the characters that made this book suck ass. More specifically... it was Nikki. I disliked how scared she was, all the time. It's human to be afraid, but having that be your one single emotion is just frustrating. But I could deal with that. I could even kind-of-maybe-sort-of deal with her utter uselessness, even though it's one of my pet peeves in books, especially when the girl is so heavily gifted. Like, you've got everything working for you to be a key character in the story, and instead, you are just a damsel in distress.
But I only started actually hating her later in the story. On the one hand, she did not want Michael to go and on the other she was so darn annoying, refusing to trust him because of something someone else did, being anti-vampires in general, accusing Michael of dumb things and just looking for something wrong about him. And then, when he does leave, she regrets it. Girl, you deserve to have your ass deserted and left to fend for yourself. Yes, you will die within a minute because you are that useless but at this point, I don't even give a fuck.
Now, clearly, considering the former paragraph... I wasn't a huge fan of the romance. It wasn't very believable, at any case. I have no idea why this two fell for each other. I mean, why would anyone fall for Nikki??? And naturally, the "I love you"s came out of nowhere. Because that's the kind of novel this is...
One of the most disappointing things about this novel was actually the writing. I had been excited to read a Keri Arthur novel when I picked this up. I heard a lot about them, after all. Sadly, I was very underwhelmed by it. There was just nothing about it, and as I said before - boring as hell.
Okay, wait, time for a positive thing about this novel!... It ended and I was able to move on to better reads. LOL.
And let's just take a second to lament how dumb someone has to be to fall into traps over and over and over again. At a certain point, couldn't you try to put a trap of your own? Or do something, anything, to counter attack?? Seriously, it's been 5 years since I read this book and I am still angry about it...
Now, on top of all this, a lot of parts made absolutely no freaking sense. Michael, who is the male protagonist, literally found the whereabouts of villainous-dude Jasper about half a dozen times throughout the book. But then, those scenes ended in fade-to-blacks paired with some inane notion like "it's time for the hunter to become the hunted"... which never played out. The next time we see our "heroes", nothing has changed and Jasper is still at large. Why is this even in the story?
Then, there was the Case of the Vanishing Injuries. These guys... they get hurt. Often. Like, hit by a car kind of hurt. And then... it's mentioned maybe once, and is forgotten until the next time they get injured. That's not how these things work, book!
But at the end of the day, it was the characters that made this book suck ass. More specifically... it was Nikki. I disliked how scared she was, all the time. It's human to be afraid, but having that be your one single emotion is just frustrating. But I could deal with that. I could even kind-of-maybe-sort-of deal with her utter uselessness, even though it's one of my pet peeves in books, especially when the girl is so heavily gifted. Like, you've got everything working for you to be a key character in the story, and instead, you are just a damsel in distress.
But I only started actually hating her later in the story. On the one hand, she did not want Michael to go and on the other she was so darn annoying, refusing to trust him because of something someone else did, being anti-vampires in general, accusing Michael of dumb things and just looking for something wrong about him. And then, when he does leave, she regrets it. Girl, you deserve to have your ass deserted and left to fend for yourself. Yes, you will die within a minute because you are that useless but at this point, I don't even give a fuck.
Now, clearly, considering the former paragraph... I wasn't a huge fan of the romance. It wasn't very believable, at any case. I have no idea why this two fell for each other. I mean, why would anyone fall for Nikki??? And naturally, the "I love you"s came out of nowhere. Because that's the kind of novel this is...
One of the most disappointing things about this novel was actually the writing. I had been excited to read a Keri Arthur novel when I picked this up. I heard a lot about them, after all. Sadly, I was very underwhelmed by it. There was just nothing about it, and as I said before - boring as hell.
Okay, wait, time for a positive thing about this novel!... It ended and I was able to move on to better reads. LOL.
witchylevy's review
5.0
I read this year ago and loved it. Just reread it last night and can't wait to finally read the rest. This is about a psychic woman and a vampire man teaming up against an evil vampire.
bookloverchelle's review against another edition
4.0
Nikki has always felt a little bit different, her telekinetic powers set her apart from friends and family at an early age. She found her place working as a private investigator but her latest case is a little too much even for her. What she thought was just following a rich man's daughter around she lands in the middle of a paranormal war she did not even know was possible. With the help of a new, mysterious man in her life, Michael, she's on the hunt for a killer who's not afraid of leaving a path of destruction behind him. Michael has lived for hundreds of years and plans on spending many more along but there is just something about Nikki he can't forget. As they get closer to a killer, and to each other, Nikki and Michael have tough decision to make if they are going to make it out alive. Great start to the series, excited to see where it goes!
vikingwolf's review against another edition
2.0
I read the second book in this series first because I received it as a gift so it took a while to hunt down book one to see how the characters met and I was a bit disappointed in this book. Had I read it first I would not have continued with the rest of the series.
In this book I found there to be no chemistry between Nikki and Michael. Nikki was that annoying female MC who argued with every decision, ignored Michael's advice about what she is facing. This means she keeps getting into trouble and I wanted to slap her at times. Michael felt like a man with a personality bypass. He was bland, dull and lacking any interest. The romance was laughable.
I'm not going to continue with the series despite book two improving a bit on this.
In this book I found there to be no chemistry between Nikki and Michael. Nikki was that annoying female MC who argued with every decision, ignored Michael's advice about what she is facing. This means she keeps getting into trouble and I wanted to slap her at times. Michael felt like a man with a personality bypass. He was bland, dull and lacking any interest. The romance was laughable.
I'm not going to continue with the series despite book two improving a bit on this.
inmyhumbleopinion's review
4.0
Nikki James is a Private Investigator with a little something extra. She has psychic gifts that help her do her job. But when she comes up against an evil that has been killing girls in her town she needs help. Michael is a vampire and a vampire hunter who has been sent to protect Nikki and when he finds out that the evil she is fighting is a vampire he has sworn to destroy it puts Nikki in even more danger. Not to mention the danger to her heart.
Keri Arthur does great PNR and vampires and this is no exception. Nikki is a strong woman who is afraid to love and Michael has a serious case of vampire angst but you have to figure they get over it somewhere in the next three books. I look forward to seeing it happen.
I’d like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review.
This title will be re-released on July 30, 2013.
Keri Arthur does great PNR and vampires and this is no exception. Nikki is a strong woman who is afraid to love and Michael has a serious case of vampire angst but you have to figure they get over it somewhere in the next three books. I look forward to seeing it happen.
I’d like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review.
This title will be re-released on July 30, 2013.
ashocap's review
4.0
I loved the building suspense of the story as well as watching the emotions develop between Nikki and Michael. I'm really glad I bought the whole series because I really wanted to know what happened next.
novelesque_life's review
3.0
3 Stars
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
Nikki James is a Private Investigator with some psychic abilities. She thinks she has seen everything until she meets Michael Kelly who opens her eyes to a world bigger than she knew. As she tries to save their current client's daughter Michael and Nikki find themselves attracted to one another. The only things standing in their way are their secrets and the evil trying to take them over.
A promising novel for sure. This novel reminds me a bit of Jeaneane Frost's Cat and Bones series. Like Frost's book this novel too is a bit on the fence - or like the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - you don't know if it will be a great ass series or just remains a good premise. I like the way Arthur is building her world. I'm on for the next book.
(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).
Nikki James is a Private Investigator with some psychic abilities. She thinks she has seen everything until she meets Michael Kelly who opens her eyes to a world bigger than she knew. As she tries to save their current client's daughter Michael and Nikki find themselves attracted to one another. The only things standing in their way are their secrets and the evil trying to take them over.
A promising novel for sure. This novel reminds me a bit of Jeaneane Frost's Cat and Bones series. Like Frost's book this novel too is a bit on the fence - or like the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - you don't know if it will be a great ass series or just remains a good premise. I like the way Arthur is building her world. I'm on for the next book.