Review - Desire Unchained

Title: Desire Unchained
Author: Larrisa Ione
Publishing Date: March 2009
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: C-
Sensuality: Hot

Desire Unchained is book two of Larrisa Ione's Demonica series. Runa Wagner was once a human until she was bitten by a warg. Infected with the werewolf virus, she now unwilling changes into a werewolf during a full moon. The horrible thing about it for Runa is she can't remember what she does turning these turns. After having her brother help her deal with her new self, she sets out to find and kill the warg who bit her. While searching she is kidnapped by a Demon and held prisoner. After a few weeks of being held captive, a new prisoner is brought in and it is none other than her old flame, Shade. Shade and Runa are tricked into becoming mates by their captor. Now, they have to learn to get along or Shade could die.

Well, I have come to the conclusion that this series is just not for me. These stories revolve around demons and these demons are morally ambiguous at best. At worst, they are psychotic. It makes it very difficult for me to connect with the demon characters. Sometimes the demons make strides to struggle with the animalistic side of their nature. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. Sometimes they could care less of either outcome.

Shade being an incubus demon, is riddled with lust. So much of his focus is on sex and getting into Runa's pants. There is a lot of mental lusting on his part and I really hate mental lusting. I have a low threshold for this sort of thing. Also, Shade and Runa are forced into intimacy with each other. Sure the sex is great between them, but they have a lot of baggage to work through. Runa caught Shade with two other women when they were dating and it broke her heart. I never really saw how Runa could have gotten over that. It was never really touched on in the book. There were a lot of issues that sort of just got glossed over like that and the book could have been so much stronger had the characters had to work out their problems.

What took a lot of the book's focus was this curse that Shade had been given in his younger days. Also, much of the time was spent on Shade and his brothers hunting down the rogue demon that had captured Shade and Runa. Because of the heavy suspense portion of the plot, the romance didn't have enough time to develop properly. There was a secondary romance between Kynan and Liz that was a pleasant bonus. I will say, I did enjoy reading about them.

Here is what others had to say:

TBQ's Personal Book Palace
The Happily Ever After...
OCD, Vampires and Rants, Oh My!
Closetwriter
Michelle's Book Review Blog
Book Binge
Darque Reviews