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Awaken Me Darkly
1st book in the Alien Huntress Series
by Gena Showalter

In a not too far off future, aliens from galaxies the universe over have invited themselves to Earth. Some are big brutes with more strength than brains and others are deceptively harmless. Some can even control your thoughts, move at the speed of light, and regenerate before your eyes. Unfortunately not all of them are very benevolent towards humans. In an attempt to counteract the threat posed to humanity a new task force was created – the Alien Investigation and Removal team (A.I.R). These agents are highly trained, equipped with the latest technology and granted authority that supersedes law enforcement and basic civil liberties. If an alien is judged a threat to humanity they are hereby authorized to kill upon sight without need to ask questions, before or after the fact.

Their best hunter is Mia Snow, a tough as nails agent who has proven time and time again that a female is more than capable of being a damn good A.I.R agent. Hell, they even use her for the training films and material! Her appearance tends to misleads her prey, as who would think that a petite china doll of a woman could be the fearsome Mia Snow? Of course a good book is never so clear cut and I am rather pleased, and dare I admit, surprised to see that Showalter’s Awaken Me Darkly does not disappoint in that aspect.

Truth be told, after sampling other works by Showalter, namely The Nymph King and her contribution to the Berkley Sensation anthology Mysteria I was rather leery of even giving this book a shot. I was not overly impressed with her previous attempts at romantic fiction and really did not desire to waste my time yet again. With the Alien Huntress series however I believe that Showalter has found her niche and now just needs to fine tune it, for clearly this woman’s talents lie more in Science fiction than in fantasy. That is not to say however that this book was absolutely perfect, far from it in fact, but in comparison to her other works it was a shinning gem.

Showalter has created an interesting future for the reader to delve into though admittedly I was disappointed that she didn’t give a little bit more back story and information about the world that her characters live in. Perhaps in future books more will be disclosed? One can certainly hope. Some things did jump out at me, which in the long run seem inconsequential, but could have the potential to better explain the world and thus the motivations of the characters in it. Chocolate is a commodity of the rich since the cocoa plant is almost extinct, as for showering, why chemical powders do what water once did. Both of these could have been further elaborated, why was the cocoa plant almost destroyed completely? Foolish poisoning of the Earth’s atmosphere by humans, alien interference? Just simple things that could have given the reader a bet grasp of the world that were ignored.

As for the actual romance in the book, well there was one scene in the book that summed up how I felt about it best:

“Enough” a female voice said from the doorway. “You are making me sick.” (p 330)

Lilla en Arr, the hero’s sister, made this biting but very accurate observation after hearing her brother’s romantic declarations to Mia Snow. And really, with lines like “You are beautiful when you laugh. Like a goddess of love come to enchant all who gaze upon you” (p 330) can you blame her for wanting to gag? And she, unlike the reader, was only subjected to the romantic lines and didn’t actually have to fight a severe case of the giggles during their sex scenes.

The seduction scenes were enticing but it’s clear that Showalter’s talent does not lay in writing romantic scenes let alone full-blown sexcapades. Rather than finding myself intrigued or turned on by the interactions between Kyrin en Arr and Mia Snow I was trying my best not to hurt myself from laughing so hard. The interactions and scenes are just far too comical and corny to be taken seriously. I will admit this however, Showalter does an excellent job of blending genres together. Unlike other authors, I doubt I need to name names, who seem unable to take an action filled romp and dress it up with a sensual relationship without turning it into misplaced softcore porn. Showalter did a commendable job of taking a tense and action packed sequence and transitioning it beautifully into a seductive encounter.

Her only failing is when Showalter attempted to take it beyond a simple seduction or make the scene into a relaxed encounter where the hero whispers sweet nothings into our heroine’s ear. At those points I found it ridiculously hard not to laugh or roll my eyes.

Humans with similar physical characteristics are popping up dead and as Mia and her team work hard to find the pattern and track down the real killer I was suitably impressed that Mia stayed true to character. This is a strong female character with a trace of femininity and I expected at anytime for this character to jump out of bounds or just slowly unravel, especially given how Showalter’s TNK turned out. Now while Mia stayed true to form I did find her trust and her immediate disclosure to her team of all of her secrets to be odd. In character, in a sense, but just overly odd. I don’t want to spoil the book, but given what her uncovered secrets entailed self preservation should have dictated that she withheld the more juicy tidbits.

My final critique, while Mia, her partner Dallas (and to an extent Jaxon), Lilla, and Kyrin were fleshed out I had a hard time truly despising or even believing in the villain. As for Mia’s boss, her father, even her other teammates, they were exceptionally flat and definately not real to me. When it came time for the confrontation between father and daughter I couldn’t help but feel disappointed and stiffed. The lines were there, but the emotion and weight behind them were lacking which resulted in a passage that should have been rife with emotional turmoil that instead became flat and too contrived.

While this novel was definately much better than the author’s previous works that I have read I cannot say it still fell short of the finish line. There were some high points granted, such as a strong and and admirable female lead, but there were enough pitfalls to detract from what could have otherwise been an astounding read.

Joana’s rating: