Souljacker
A Lily Bound Novel,  Yasmine Galenorn

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  paranormal and fantasy

Hmnnn, succubus – they’re not characters that really feel empathetic are they? I put off reading Richelle Mead’s wonderful Georgia Kinkaid series for ages simply because I could not see how an author could make a succubus into a person I’d understand, feel I want them to be happy, and yet I was so, so wrong. Add in Jill Myles terrific Succubus reads and you can see just how very wrong my first thoughts were.
So if you’re like me, take a deep breath and prepare to be surprised.

I’ve enjoyed some of Yasmine’s other reads, so I was familiar with her writing style. the story jumps right in with a death at Lily’s house, one of her top clients has been murdered. Not good for business, nor is the fact her clients wife is on the warpath and as a powerful and influential were she can – and does – do immense damage to Lily’s business. So far its worked giving her an income, keeping her alive through sex with Supernaturals, she’s found in the past humans are just far too fragile, and wants to avoid killing people.

In this society Vampires aren’t the Romance kind, but irrational, dangerous killers. Once turned little of the human remains, and they simply lust for blood, sex and power, and have become so dangerous that vampire kills aren’t even investigated by the police any more. That leaves Lily and her friends on their own, as a Vampire Execution the police simple pass on the murder, but she does get given the name of a chaos demon who might help. And Lily and her friends need that help when they learn the killer wants them dead too....
I like Lily, she's just trying to live, trying to keep her friends safe, enjoy life and she's found a way that avoids killing humans, something that happened in the past to her and hurts her conscience.
She has some good friends, witch Dani, human Nate, Marsh the...Ghost? spirit? whatever, he’s someone from Lily’s past who’s returned out of the blue, and of course Whiskas the cat – who’s more than a cat, though decidedly not a shifter.
Lily herself belong to the dark Fae court, and we meet the Queen, Wynter in this book. Scary woman, and she’s very powerful. You don’t live for thousands of years without learning a few things.
Archer the chaos demon turns out to be not the type Lily feared, Demons don’t get great press, but in fact he’s a true gentleman, luckily attracted to Lily, and they’re in the throes of him helping her with sex feeding, and maybe they’re developing something more. I didn’t get a great feeling of romance here, its pretty clear one is meant to be starting but I wasn’t really convinced of anything more than a bit of lust between them. Maybe that just takes time, sometimes its better that way.

Its a fun read, a story with elements of many types of creatures thrown in, Vampires, demons, ghosts,witches,  Fae and of course Lily and Whiskas.
In a way that kind of affected the story for me, there were so many different types of character, so much going on that the murders almost took second place. When the climax (Hah!!) came it was almost missing for me, they’d had so many scrapes already that it seemed like it was just one more.
I enjoyed this but I’m waiting for book two to see how the series develops, it didn’t keep me gripped as I’d expected. At times it just felt a little muddled as there was so much happening in a relatively short space of time and pages (GR has it at 292 pages) or 3552 kindle locations.

Stars: Three. Maybe as this continues I'll feel more for it, its tough for first books in a new series.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

The Souljacket by Yasmine Galenorm is the first book in this new series. One of Lillys clients is killed in her home. Now her business had been distroyed and she is trying to find the killer before he finds her. Her friends are in danger and as they try to find the souljacket before he kills again. Great world building action, adventure and romance, I can't wait for more by this outstanding author. Highly recommended this book it has a little bit of everything, Can't wait for more in this series.

Lily owns a salon where, for a fee, she provides pleasure while taking chi, lifeforce, the essence that keeps her alive. Unfortunately, her latest client is killed while at her place, and it comes to light her and her friends past is rearing its ugly head. She turns to Archer Desmond, a chaos demon who is a PI, to help them track down the killer. Together, will they find the murderer, or will her and her friends be picked off one by one? Quite a few years have passed since I’ve read a book by Ms. Galenorn. Not because I didn’t like her books anymore, but because I kept reading other books. After reading this book, I can’t remember why I didn’t go back to her. As in the previous books I have read by her, this book has great characterizations, is wonderfully written, and the plot is great. The reader isn’t bogged down with unnecessary details all at once which sometimes happens in a series starter. The one point where we did get a lot of detail was in getting to know Lily by having flashbacks of her past, but not quite as much with the secondary characters. I still got a great sense of each character, and really liked them, and it didn’t lessen my pleasure. Why spill everything at the beginning? In fact, I now look forward to reading more books just to find out more about everyone. This book is a great urban fantasy, with a dash of paranormal romance. If you like either genre or are a fan of Ms. Galenorn’s, pick this book up today; you won’t be disappointed. Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and Diversion Books for the e-copy of the book. This same review will be posted on both Goodreads and Amazon.

OMG, OMG, OMG!!!! LOVED THIS!! This is destined to be my new favorite series!!! Loved the "bloody" world of Seattle (one of my favorite places), loved Archer, Lily, Dani, Marsh, Nate and Whiskey...even Wynter for being a Queen, she had some "humanity". Absolutely loved everything about it and can't wait for the next book!!!!

Well I saw this author had a new series starting and couldn't wait to jump right onboard. Add in the fact that her lead character is a succubus and its instantly going to be a different type of story. I think the synopsis does a very good job of setting the scene for what's to come. This book felt more urban fantasy then paranormal romance to me though as even though Lily clearly needs sex and indeed there are obviously mature scenes here it didn't seem like titilation but just a very necessary part of setting up just what Lily has to go through to survive. In fact if her hunger overpowers her then very bad things can happen and the author had a unique way of actually pointing this out! There's a poignant moment when the reader realises that Lily has had to purposely close her heart off as even though she was born for passion perhaps love might not be possible for her.
It's a world the author has created were supernaturals are out of the closet and indeed this the first book is pointing the way for vampires to try to take even greater control. I liked that Lily has good friends around her and the chaos demon Archer is quite possibly looking like being her love interest but first of all Lily has to survive her old friend now turned vampire trying to kill her! Yes in this reality being turned into a vampire really does release a monster but there are other creatures that can be equally dangerous. We meet witches, ghosts, demons , weres and perhaps most surprising of all was the involvement of the fae. No outright spoilers here but the inclusion of the fae and their Winter Queen looks set to take this series in a direction that can only be full of surprises. Already things are revealed that leave questions hanging and I strongly suspect that Lily's life is about to get very complicated indeed!
This book is clearly the authors way of easing us into her new series. I had fun getting to know Lily and her friends but did think it overshadowed the plot at times. Things do get a resolution of sorts but that still leaves a few things hanging in the wind as Lily seems to have more than one enemy. A succubus as the heroine is a bold step for the author as it could go horribly wrong but Lily isn't an evil soul sucker just a woman trying to survive. Actually thinking about it there are really only two other series that really stand out as taking this idea and developing it so if you haven't yet read Richelle Meads, Georgina Kinkaid books or Jill Myles Succubus Diary series then now is the time to search them out. I'm curious what will happen next and look forward to reading more about Lily and her possible romance with Archer
This voluntary opinion is of an advance reader copy I requested from Netgalley and these honest thoughts are my own.

Format: ebook
Tissue warning: no
HEA: For the most part. This is a series, but this ends with no real cliffhanger.
Triggers: no
My reviewer rating: 4 out of 5.
Recommend read: Yes, due to some sexy going on, I'd leave it to new adult.
Published: March 7, 2017 pre-order on Amazon
Thank you, Netgalley for this free e-copy in exchange for my honest-to-goodness review!

Remember Bo from Lost Girl on Sci-fi? Well, Lily is Bo on steroids. I miss Lost Girl, I won't lie. The show was great, but if they had written it based on Souljacker, I think it would have been slightly more interesting.

The pacing in this story worked very well. There wasn't too much fluff, and there wasn't too much going on, period. We're on the chase for the Souljacker. Yes, Lily Bound is a sex salon, but it's only Lily that works there, so it's not like a brothel or anything, and she only has a few customers a week. Even with the main character being a succubus, there's not too much sexual situations going on. There's only a few, and they are pretty tactfully presented. I'm not a fan of straight-up porn in my novels, and Souljacker put it together tastefully.

Does anyone else miss Lost Girl? Yasmine Galenorn may have just the thing to fill that void. Souljacker features a succubus, Lily O’Connell, living in the human world with a diverse entourage that includes a witch, a ghost, a demon, a human tech geek, and a cat that’s not. She has ties to the Winter Court because of her mother but doesn’t spend much time with other Fae, though it looks like that may change as the series progresses.

Lily owns a sex salon called Lily Bound where she fulfills the fantasies of supernaturals, mostly weres, in exchange for feeding on their chi. (She won’t feed on humans anymore because it’s likely to kill them.) When one of her clients is killed by a vampire inside her salon, which should have had impenetrable wards, the police are unable to help. Lily turns to P.I. Archer Desmond, a chaos demon, to catch the killer before Lily and her friends become victims as well.

To make matters worse, the victim, Tygur, (my biggest complaint about this book is that character’s ridiculous name) was the weretiger alpha and his mate blames Lily for his death. Now the entire pack is out to get her along with a murderous vampire.

Souljacker is set in the near future, though exactly how near is unclear - cars and phones seem to be the same as they are today, but characters reference a few recent events as though they were many years past. In the intervening time, weres and the Fae have come out to the public and are more or less accepted by the human population. Vampires revealed themselves several years later and because of their violent natures, are not yet part of the mainstream. The vampires’ portrayal as mobsters led by the Deadfather is perhaps a bit cliché, but I thought it worked.

I also liked Lily’s relationship with Archer, which might be described as colleagues with benefits. She has to feed from him the second time they meet, which could have led to an insta-love situation, but thankfully didn’t. And I feel bad for Nate, the best friend who has no shot at being a love interest because he’s human. I really enjoyed Lily’s motley crew and the history that already existed between them. I’m excited to see what’s next for this supporting cast.

This is only my third book of Galenorn’s but for those familiar with her work, it has a similar feel to Flight from Death, although I like Souljacker much better despite its complete lack of dragons. I’m curious about how Lily’s relationship with the Winter Queen will develop, as well as the relationship with Archer. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series.