No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon

SPOILER ALERT: This is the 19th book in the Dark Hunter series & while the author says that the books can be read in any order, the beginning of this one leads me to believe it would give away the ending of a previous novel. Just FYI.

Devereaux Peltier (Dev) has always stayed close to his family's New Orleans-based paranormal night club, Sanctuary, to help his mother & keep a watchful eye on his younger sister. After the gigantic battle to defend their nightclub & the loss of both his parents during that fight, Dev is a shapeshifting bear adrift. As the night bouncer for the club, he sees all sorts of characters. Unfortunately the one who took his breath away is off-limits.

Samia (Sam) is an Amazonian dark-hunter. She is an immortal who sold her soul to Artemis in order to avenge the murder of her family. Eons later she is still roaming the Earth by night to protect the human race from all manner of foul creatures. The night that she returns to Sanctuary for business is a night that will change everything she has taken as fact for the last 5,000 years.

When Sam & Dev have to join together to keep Sam alive & out of the hands of the bad guys, the two find that they have a lot more in common than they originally thought & that their mutual attraction is something they really can't seem to fight.

Let me just preface this review with a personal note. I am not a prude when it comes to sexual situations. I consider myself to be very liberal in my acceptance of all manner & expression of all relationships. That being said, I am not a fan of gratuitous sex scenes in film or print. Honestly, if there is no real plot point behind the deed, then I don't need a play-by-play, let alone several.

Overall I must say I really liked this book. Sherrilyn Kenyon has an amazing ability to capture not only the action, but the essence of a situation, without getting too bogged down in the details or word count. I could picture almost every action & sequence as I read the book, including some that were just a bit too much for my reading tastes.

As I just stated, I don't enjoy reading gratuitous sex scenes, and I feel like this was one of those books where every 75 pages someone was getting it on, or had just finished getting it on. It irked me, but I decided to ignore that and focus on the story. When I did that, I found I enjoyed the story in general.

The characters were certainly engaging & had some depth to them, while still managing to be accessible to someone who has never read the series. The dialogue was witty & amusing & really helped move the story along. My favorite part of her writing though, was her inclusion of the Greek dieties. The mythology added another layer of intrigue to the story that I think bound it together well. While by the end of the book I felt I needed a character index, I was still able to grasp the whole story.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book for more mature young adults. If you enjoy urban fantasy novels, and can get past or even enjoy the extra sex scenes, then I would recommend this book & series. I think I may go back & pick through the series since it doesn't have to necessarily be read in order. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!