Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost (Night Huntress #1)

Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Smut-O-Meter: 8 out of 10
My Rating: 3 out of 5

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Flirting with the Grave...

Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father - the one responsible for ruining her mother's life. Then she's captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.

In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She's amazed she doesn't end up as his dinner - are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn't have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

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I put much more weight on characters than story, and the characters in this didn't really appeal to me. Bones kind of reminded me of Travis from Beautiful Disaster. They have a lot of differences of course, mainly that Bones is not nearly as pathetic and insecure as Travis, but his attitude and temper reminded me of Travis a lot of the time, and that is a really bad thing.

I found Cat pretty annoying. It seems that nowadays paranormal authors are trying their very best to make their heroine as far as possible from being Bella. Not that that is what Jeaniene Frost was doing, but it means that I have seen a lot of heroines like this lately, and most were done better. Such as Kelsey from Tiger's Curse and Alex from Half-Blood. Instead, Cat kind of reminded me of Dez from Touch, who was also kind of annoying. She was pretty kick ass in the final fight scene though.

The story was the best part of this book. It was quite a conspiracy, lots of tracking down leads, interesting stuff. Kept me reading. But I thought the romance was seriously lacking. I would hardly call it a romance, just lots of sex. The first sex scene was shocking. Probably the most explicit you can get without getting an erotica label. There wasn't any of the stuff that I love about romance novels. None of the building of their relationship, sweet scenes and romantic words. They just skipped it all and were having sex about a quarter of the way into the book, so there was no time for more. 

I guess I should stick to YA, where it takes the whole first book in a series for a couple to admit they have feelings for each other. That's what I love, building tension and simmering feelings. Reminds us of our first love. But its definitely not just YA that does it right. I have read more than my fair share of great adult romance. This just is not one of them. I'll probably continue the series eventually, but I'm not in a hurry.