Last Kiss Goodnight by Gena Showalter – a Review

Last Kiss Goodnight is a new series by Gena Showalter.  Otherworld Assassins series is a spinoff from Showalter’s Alien Huntress series.

Description:
     The breathtaking first novel in New York Times best selling author Gena Showalter’s new paranormal romance series, Otherworld Assassins, featuring a black ops agent who is captured and enslaved…and the beautiful deaf girl who holds the key to his salvation…

    THE SWEETEST TEMPTATION…

     Black ops agent Solomon Judah awakens caged and bound in a twisted zoo where otherworlders are the main attraction. Vika Lukas, the owner’s daughter, is tasked with Solo’s care and feeding. The monster inside him yearns to kill her on sight, even though she holds the key to his escape. But the human side of him realizes the beautiful deaf girl is more than she seems—she’s his.

     THE ULTIMATE PRICE…

     Vika endures the captives’ taunts and loathing, hoping to keep them alive even if she can’t free them. Only, Solo is different—he protects her. But as hostility turns to forbidden romance, his feelings for her will be used against him…and he’ll be put to a killer test.

Review:

Last Kiss Goodnight by Gena Showalter begins with some members of the Alien Huntress series.  Michael Black meets with his alien team (Otherworld Assassins) to discuss a mission, but before breaking up, they are attacked.

We meet our heroine, a young girl named Vika, who helps her father run a zoo.  Vika cares about the animals under her care, especially the lion.  Her father is a bitter, angry man, who thinks nothing of hitting Vika. Because he wants to teach her a lesson, knowing he will hurt her more, he kills all the animals in front of her.  Years later he has a different zoo, made up of Otherworld aliens, who have been kidnapped and caged. 

Solomon (Solo) is our hero, and the newest addition to the zoo, having survived the attack.  Vika’s father keeps all the Otherworld aliens cuffed with special magical bindings that will cut into each person, as well as drugs.  No matter how strong they are, they cannot escape.

Vika’s job is to take care of them, feed them, but they all hate her, not knowing she too is a victim.  Vika’s is deaf, something her father did to her long ago.  Only Solo, who is a giant of a man, used to being called fugly, begins to discover that what he feels when he sees Vika, is that she belongs to him;  and suspects something is not right when Vika never responds to threats from the other caged aliens.  Solo finds out about her reading lips, and that she cannot hear. Vika finds herself attracted to him, though she tries to fight it, but she takes care of him, when he is beaten. For the first time in his life, Solo cannot find a way to escape, and he worries about the beating Vika takes from her father and the assistant.   This was a nice build up of a romance between two unlikely people, and it was nice to see them discover their love later in the story.

I thought the book was a bit gross, by the torture of the Otherworld beings.  A lot of time was spent on that, and it seemed somewhat repetitious during those long scenes at the zoo. The torture, humiliation suffered by them was not pretty to read. Once Solo and Vika escape, the storyline does pick up with excitement, and romance. 

Showalter does show very well the desperation of Vika, who turned into a very nice character.  I also liked Solo, but more so later on.  I had mixed feelings, especially with so much time spent on both the evil father and his assistant, who wanted Vika for himself. 

Overall, I think this series has great potential, with the use of these wonderful Otherworld characters.  I just did not care for some of the gross torture that we spent too much time on,as this took away from my enjoyment of the book.  But I plan to read the next book in this series.

Reviewed by Barb