Review--Storm Born

Just typical. No love life to speak of for months, then all at once, every creature in the Otherworld wants to get in your pants...

Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who does a brisk trade banishing spirits and fey who cross into the mortal world. Mercenary, yes, but a girl's got to eat. Her most recent case, however, is enough to ruin her appetite. Hired to find a teenager who has been taken to the Otherworld, Eugenie comes face to face with a startling prophecy--one that uncovers dark secrets about her past and claims that Eugenie's first-born will threaten the future of the world as she knows it.

Now Eugenie is a hot target for every ambitious demon and Otherworldy ne'er-do-well, and the ones who don't want to knock her up want her dead. Eugenie handles a Glock as smoothly as she wields a wand, but she needs some formidable allies for a job like this. She finds them in Dorian, a seductive fairy king with a taste for bondage, and Kiyo, a gorgeous shape-shifter who redefines animal attraction. But with enemies growing bolder and time running out, Eugenie realizes that the greatest danger is yet to come, and it lies in the dark powers that are stirring to life within her...

I just started this series recently based on some recommendations from other Richelle Mead fans, and all I can say is I am glad that I did. This book is so different than anything I would've expected. Shamans, shapeshifters, fey, fairies and other supernatural creatures that I didn't know existed!

As the blurb above explains, Eugenie is a shaman, she has the ability to send demons or other nasties back to the Otherworld, where they all live or to the Underworld, where they die. There is no returning to any worlds once you are sent to the Underworld.

Eugenie is really in the thick of things once a prophecy goes out that her child will bring ultimate chaos to her world. Now demons and others are after her, either to help fulfill the prophecy or to stop it from happening by bringing about Eugenie's death.

Eugenie also learns more about herself, her heritage that her family has kept secret all her life. The new revelations are enough to shatter her world. As is having a kitsune--a fox shapeshifter--and a fairy king both vying for her attention. Only Eugenie has the power to put a stop to all this, but she needs to learn more about herself in order to accomplish said task of saving her world.

There were many twists and surprises in this book that I enjoyed very much. Having so many possible outcomes, I was surprised with the turnout! I mean some of it I knew, just by the the title of the next book in the series, Thorn Queen, which is out now. Actual release date is August 4th though. That will definitely be a book I will be getting and adding to my TBR pile.

I really enjoyed Richelle's writing for adults. I've read her YA Vampire Academy series and loved that and look forward to the next one in that. Her adult series is just as exciting and has the same kind of anticipation that I get from Vampire Academy. Richelle writes very realistically and yet still manages to incorporate the fantasy part in a way that is not overly confusing. When you create your own world, you know the rules, but others don't, so the writer must make her world understandable to the outsiders, and Richelle does this fabulously.