Keri Arthur - Bound to Shadows (Riley Jenson Guardian Book #08)

Yet another series I'm a fan of and after the last book I was eager to see what Riley would be facing in her personal life. As fans of the series know Riley Jenson and her twin brother Rhoan are half vampire and half werewolf. The wolves in this tale have one soul mate they go through life hoping to find. The connection between wolf soul mates is so strong that more often than not, if one dies their soul mate dies with them. The big question Riley faces is can a person with two souls have two soul mates? She's been in a committed relationship with the zexy vampire Quinn but they always knew one day she would find her wolf soul mate. How would they deal with that when it happened? This book gives us some of the answers.

Part vampire, part werewolf, Riley Jenson knows what can happen when vamps don’t play well with others. But she’s never seen anything like this: a series of brutal murders surrounding the latest hot spot for vampire-human hookups—and the victims aren’t just killed, they’re beheaded. Now Riley is launching into action, toying with a seductive—and highly suspicious—club owner, and finding herself in the middle of another mystery: women being killed one by one, without a trace of violence.

For Riley, solving multiple cases—in a world going mad with human and vampire passions—would have been tough enough. Instead she has two jealous lovers on her hands: Kye Murphy, the amber-eyed werewolf who makes Riley’s wolf blood howl—and Quinn, the cool, elegant vamp who has over a thousand years’ experience at fulfilling women’s desires. While she’s busy juggling these two sexy beasts, Riley’s detective work takes a stunningly violent turn. Finding a murderer is now a matter of life and death. Especially since the killer has long since found her . . .

At the end of the previous book Riley finally finds her soul mate; too bad he's more foe than friend. I thought making Riley's soul mate someone she despises was an interesting twist by Ms. Arthur so I was anxious to see how things would turn out in this book. I thought Riley and Kye would eventually work things out which would cause problems between Riley and Quinn and that would be the big to-do in this book. Instead, the animosity continues to grow between Riley and Kye and they fight against the soul mate connection while also occasionally giving in to the physical pull of their bodies (hot and hard sex up against the door jamb anyone?).

As for Rhoan, he's already found his soul mate in Leander and is finally taking a big step towards a more committed relationship: he and Leander want to have a baby. Leander's sister is willing to carry the baby and they ask Riley to donate an egg so the baby will be a part of the Jenson clan too. This is a huge deal for Riley because above all else, her heart's desire has been to have a baby. With things that happened to her in the past, she is unable to carry one. I can't wait to see where Ms. Arthur takes this story line.

We also got to see more of Riley's friend Dia, a woman/clone Riley helped in the past, and Dia's daughter Risa. We find out Risa's father was one of the same creatures Quinn used to be before he became a vampire. Dia asks for Quinn's help with mentoring Risa since the young girl's powers are growing every day. Dia is also psychic and Riley goes to her for some advice about her future and the whole soul mate situation. There's also more of Kade, the were-stallion (*snickers*) who has a corral of mares and new colts to look after. Kade is also a co-worker of Riley's and is the funny sidekick type character. It was nice to have Kade and Riley working together on solving the latest crimes.

I have to say I really, really, really disliked Kye. He's a cold-hearted, selfish and cocky son-of-a-bitch with a dash of crazy. At first I thought he would change because of Riley but as things progressed I started to sense something really wasn't right with him. In the end, we found out what he was really up to. I felt sorry that after all this time and hope, this is the soul mate Riley ended up with. I wondered how Ms. Arthur would resolve this horrible situation and what she did was shocking. Not just what happened with Kye (which looking back on the series, I can see it was heading that way) but what happened with Kade. I was not feeling that particular bit at all.

With that said, I can't wait to read book 9 which is the series finale.

Final Grade:

Around The Net:

Steph Su Reads: 2.5 out of 5
Leontine's Book Realm: 4 out of 5 stars
Romantic Times: 4.5 out of 5 stars