Review: Twilight Hunter by Kait Ballenger (Execution Underground #1)

Twilight Hunter (Execution Underground #1)
Kait Ballenger
Published: August 27, 2013 (Harlequin)
Purchase at: Book Depository or Amazon
Review Source: Copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Mary

Rating (out of 5): 4 stars

Jace was a member of the Execution Underground, a group devoted to policing the supernatural community. Each member had a specialty and Jace’s was werewolves.  When girls started showing up dead, ripped to shreds, Jace hit the streets to find the killer with the claws.

He did not expect to find Frankie, the pack master for the local pack, who was also investigating the deaths. Jace, prejudiced to all werewolves, grabbed Frankie, not knowing that she was hunting a killer to avoid her very unwanted arranged marriage. Did I mention she was set to go into heat that night also? Jace, who hated all things supernatural, himself included thanks to the heritage of his abusive father, did not know what hit him when Frankie’s ‘time’ came, and came, and came again.

Like it or not, Frankie and Jace have to work together to stop the killer. Fraternizing with the enemy was not in the Execution Underground playbook, and the other members have to the pick sides and side arms. When the crimes start to get personal and Frankie is threatened, Jace realizes that he might have real feelings for her.

Twilight Hunter had a couple role reversals that I really loved. First, Frankie, our heroine, was a pretty badass pack master in a genre that greatly prefers males in that role. As a female, she had a precarious position, but was willing to kill to keep it. I have read a lot of books with female leads that are kind of whiny and annoying (you’ve read them, too, don’t act like you haven’t), but Frankie was not one of them.

Also, Jace was the one with the daddy issues. Don’t often see that one. After his father abused and abandoned his mother, he was determined to shun everything that reminded him of dear old daddy, including his own shifter abilities. One of the biggest, and most believable, obstacles to his relationship with Frankie is his hatred for werewolves.

I really liked Twilight Hunter overall, hence the 4-star rating, but there were two things that bothered me. First, the twist with the killer was set up a little too much. You knew the big surprise several chapters before the author revealed it. The way she structured the plot twist was still really good, just not much of a shock.

The second thing that bothered me was a pretty common theme among romance novels in general: The Misunderstanding. Oh, how I hate this overused plot device. Misunderstandings do occur in relationships. They are pretty common. However, it is a personal pet peeve when half the book is spent huffing and puffing because someone didn’t finish a sentence. I would much rather have the couple just get together, because we know they are going to anyways, and then let the conflicts and tensions come from other sources, like the crime or mystery they have to solve.

Sexual content: Graphic alpha werewolf on whatever-the-hell Jace is sex!