A very engaging, satisfying paranormal romance.

Pleasure Unbound

Series?: Yes, first in the Demonica series (currently 3 books).

Setting: Present day NYC. Demons live in another realm, Sheoul (hell) and travel to the human world using Harrowgates. Few humans know they exist.

Heroine and Hero: Tough leather clad human Tayla, early 20s, emotionally scarred from watching her mother raped and killed by a demon, raised in foster homes and rat infested warehouses, now fights demons as a Guardian with the Aegis, a group of humans dedicated to eradicating all demons. Eidolon is a 100 year old Incubus demon, approaching S’genesis, a stage of maturation when he must either become bonded to one mate or turn into a monster who impregnates as many females, willing or unwilling, as possible, only to be hunted down and killed by his brethren (that’s a hell of a motivation for marriage). Less fantastically, Eidolon is a physician who founded a demon hospital (Underworld General — UGH) with his two brothers, Shade and Wraith, and he is an extremely conscientious, good, loyal and empathetic. Oh, and hawt.

Plot: Tayla ends up at UGH and is treated by Eidolon. They share an instant attraction — and when I say instant attraction, I mean immediate hot sex — despite their mutual dislike. Eidolon escorts Tayla home (ostensibly to keep the loaction of UGH a secret) and on the way, a demon organ selling scheme is revealed, which they both want to uncover and stop. A side issue is the identity of Tayla’s father and the question of whether she had living relatives in town.

Conflict: Duh. She’s a demon slayer and he’s a demon. Also, he’s not sure if his attraction to her is “real” or a function of his impending s’genesis.

Word on the Web:

Book Binge, Casee, 4.5

Bitten By Books, 4.5 tombstones

Lurv a la Mode (Kmont), 4 scoops

Dear Author, Jia, C

AAR, Ellen, B-

Rip My Bodice, Sheridan, very positive

Happily Ever After (Christine), very positive

SciFiGuy.ca, mixed

Book Loons, 3 books

DarqueReviews, very positive

Ann Aguirre gives an author’s view, very positive

Mrs. Giggles, 87

Better Off Read, 6 stars

TGTBTU, Shannon C., B+

Fun Factoid: Ione gives  a great answer to that stupid wink wink question, “where do you get your ideas for sex scenes”:

Er, same place Stephen King gets his ideas for horror scenes! My imagination, the news, movies, the real world around me! My sex scenes are no more a reflection of my life than are the bank-robbing scenes in another author’s thriller.

Racy Romance Review:

I really enjoyed Pleasure Unbound. It was a fast paced, action packed, gripping story with a hot romance at its center. The plot twists were surprising and terrific. I kept thinking, “Wow. This is a great STORY.” At a very basic level, I had to know what was going to happen next.  I fell asleep with the book on my chest, I had the book in one hand while making toast with the other, and I read a few paragraphs at stop lights. I don’t know when I last felt that way about a paranormal romance.

Pleasure Unbound reminded me a little of Kresley Cole in the way that Ione doesn’t seem to take her world too seriously (consider the name of the demon hospital — UGH). You feel like the author is having fun and as a reader it feels infectious. Some of the stuff is ridiculous and over the top (the hero’s baby batter is an aphrodisiac, the heroine wears red leather and lace to fight, and there is a female named Skulk) (oh, and I totally looked that up in the Urban Dictionary. Baby batter is not in my everyday vocab) but I think if you take the book in a certain way, you can let that stuff slide. On the other hand, I should warn readers that PU a very violent story with some pretty gory scenes.

The sexual tension was high both because of Tayla and Eidolon’s mutual dislike, and because Tayla is sexually disfunctional. As a seminus demon, Eidolon is not having any of that. It takes 2/3 of the book for Tayla to be cured, despite several attempts. I know some readers felt that Tayla was cured too eaily, but come on people. This is paranormal romance. Several days and multiple sexual encounters in PNR is the equivalent in real life of 12 months of behavioral cognitive therapy and high doses of Wellbutrin. This is highly subjective, but I thought it was a very hot read.

Although Ione built the amount of world she needed, this is not the book for people who like a lot of detailed worldbuilding (the one exception would be the sheer variety of demons that populate it). One major question I had was how the Aegis, who got up close and personal daily with demons, had not figured out that some demons were good.

A major theme in the book is good and evil and how we figure out what they are. I like this kind of theme, but I did have problems with its execution.

The lesson Tayla learns, that any species, whether human or demon, can be good and bad, is an oldie but a goodie (Sookie Stackhouse learns the same thing about the supernaturals in the Southern Vampire Mysteries). I did scratch my head at times, however, when the acceptance theme of “we all do things we are programmed to do” and “we are what we are” (in the case of these quotations, a Soulshredder demon who tortures, rapes and kills victims.) reared its head. I felt a tension here. Take Eidolon: on the one hand, we are told he has incredible self-control because he was raised by Justice Demons.  Justice Demons are good because they are Justice Demons (“they are what they are”), but Eidolon is good because he was raised by Justice Demons (he is what parents, and later he himself, choses he be). Later, Eidolon will be powerless to resist his base urges when s’genesis completes — so he’s back to being what he is. No choice.

To say that demons have a morality, as Eidolon says they do, is to say that they have moral rules and a choice whether to follow them. Then to turn around and say demons are driven by uncontrollable instincts is to compare them to, say, nonhuman animals. This isn’t immorality — it is outside morality. Is is amorality (we don’t blame the lion when he eats a baby zebra. And we don’t praise him either.).  I find this tension all over paranormal romance — it is in the Sookie books as well, so Ione is in excellent company — and while I know the uncontrollable urges make for some sexy and edgy reading (those urges so often being sexual or aggressive — why is there never an uncontrollable urge to love, or make peace?) I find the two modes of being not well integrated in general in the subgenre.

Overall, though, I totally enjoyed Pleasure Unbound and will definitely read the next in the series.

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