In this second installment of Arthur's new paranormal romance series--the follow-up to "Full Moon Rising"--half-vampire, half-werewolf Riley Jenson and her cross-breed colleagues unravel a conspiracy to create the ultra-breed warrior. Original. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Vampire-werewolf heroine Riley Jensen escapes an unknown enemy's breeding pens to kick off the second installment of Arthur's urban fantasy series (following Full Moon Rising). The action and sex come fast and furious as Riley works with her twin brother, her boss at Melbourne's Directorate of Other Races, as well as most of her lovers (who include a vampire with werewolf issues, a werewolf with mixed loyalties, an alpha werewolf and a horse-shifter) to uncover and derail a nefarious plot to create an army of super-beings. Strong world-building, vivid personalities and the distinctive cultures of each of the various paranormal strains combine for a rich narrative, and Arthur's descriptive prose adds texture and menace. She also creates strong empathy for Riley, whose vampire half is beginning to assert itself, making her already precarious fertility problems worse. As in her first entry, though, Arthur can occasionally lose her reader amid complicated paranormal plot points, and her publisher's insistence on marketing her as paranormal romance may frustrate; though the heroine's multiple sexual partners fit her werewolf nature, they do not fit romance genre conventions and are better suited to readers of erotica/romance hybrids. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information