I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
Wicked Business
by
Janet Evanovich
paranormal romance, suspense in Hardcover edition that was published by Bantam Books on June 19, 2012 and has 299 pages.
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Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Smokin' Seventeen, Love in a Nutshell, Explosive Eighteen, Notorious Nineteen, The Husband List, The Heist, Takedown Twenty, The Chase, Pros and Cons, Top Secret Twenty-One, The Job, Two for the Dough, Stephanie Plum #3 – #7, Visions of Sugar Plums, Wicked Charms, Love Overboard, Stephanie Plums, Plum Spooky, , Tricky Twenty-Two, The Pursuit, The Scam, Curious Minds, Turbo Twenty-Three, Dangerous Minds, Hardcore Twenty-Four, "The Shell Game", Look Alive Twenty-five, The Big Kahuna, Twisted Twenty-six, Fortune and Glory, The Bounty, Full House, The Recovery Agent, Thanksgiving
Second in the Lizzie and Diesel humorous romantic suspense series revolving around a group of extraordinary beings — the Unmentionables. Based in Salem, Massachusetts. In this story, they’re after the Luxuria stone, the stone of lust.
Diesel is a secondary character from the Stephanie Plum series. We were first introduced to him in Visions of Sugar Plums.
My Take
Well. It is consistent. It’s just as light, fluffy, and nothing as the first book, Wicked Appetite. It might even be too light for a beach read!! It has all the depth of a meringue that got caught out in the rain. Sure it has plenty of funny moments, but I was hoping for more of the Diesel found in the Stephanie Plum books. There Diesel is hot and sexy. Here, we know he’s desirable because those are the words Evanovich uses. I just don’t feel it. I want to. Lord knows I want to, but the only sexual tension is what I brought in from my own expectations from those Plum books.
It’s a very quick read. When I got to the end, I flipped back a couple pages just to be sure I hadn’t turned two pages over at once. The ending was so abrupt, I felt like I suddenly walked into a wall. An insubstantial wall, but it stopped just the same.
The primary theme of the series revolves around seven stones that hold the power of the seven deadly sins, the Stones of SALIGIA. Anyone who gets all seven together in one container could bring hell to earth. And Wulf is just the kind of guy who’d want to do it.
We never did find out who Ann is. We do, however, get an historical tour of the more obscure attractions in Boston.
The story didn’t even make me feel hungry! Although I’m amazed that Claire is still in busy with all the cupcakes and baked goods she’s giving away.
The Story
Wulf has stepped up his hunt for the second stone, and Diesel needs Lizzie’s power to help him track down magical clues to its whereabouts.
It’s a treasure hunt with everyone after the same clues, and the bad guys don’t want to play nice.
The Characters
Lizzie Tucker is a baker, and she thought she was normal. Then she met Diesel and learned that she’s one of the few people in the world with abilities beyond the ordinary, an Unmentionable. Lizzie can sense objects related to the SALIGIA Stones. She has a cat named Cat 7143, and she lives in a cute 1740 saltbox that her Great Aunt Ophelia left her. Her friends include Gloria “Glo,” an outgoing, naive woman who thinks she has magical abilities and is on a perpetual quest for the one. She works with Lizzie at Dazzle Bakery for the very outgoing Clara Dazzle who owns it.
The gorgeously scruffy Diesel is another one with special abilities — magically unlocking locks is one of them. He’s employed by an regulatory agency that polices the Unmentionables, and they have tasked him with preventing Wulf getting his hands on the Stones. He inherited a scarily sentient monkey named Carl on one of his adventures with Stephanie. Mindy Smith is his latest assistant.
His cousin Gerwulf “Wulf” Grimoire is eerily handsome and quite elegant, in contrast to his darker preferences. Steven Hatchet is a nutjob who works for Wulf. He’ll do anything for him, and he dresses like a Renaissance escapee. He’s fluent in poisons and at ease with torture.
Deirdre Early, a.k.a., Anarchy, is one of the women Dr. Reedy dated. The heiress to the Early candy fortune, she also slept with Wulf and her powers have been growing ever since right along with her anger issues. She makes Hatchet look like Mr. Suburban Mom.
Dr. Gilbert Reedy was a professor at Harvard obsessed with Lovey poetry. Julie Brodsky is the professor’s assistant. Nina Wortley runs Ye Olde Exotica Shoppe where Glo gets her supplies and where Reedy found the book of Lovey sonnets.
Lovey was “considered a visionary philosopher” in his time with a dedicated following. He inherited the Luxuria Stone and devised a hiding place for it with lots of clues on how to find it. Mortimer Sandman keeps running away from his son’s house. Turns out he doesn’t need to use sand to put people to sleep either. He just bores ’em to snores. Although, he does have his special party trick to attract the ladies.
The Cover and Title
Ooh, it’s a pretty sparkly cover with its deep royal blue background and the multitude of tiny rainbow-colored iridescent splats of color. The author’s name and title are in embossed letters with the author’s name using a cream as a highlight to the yellow letters while the title is grass green gradating down to yellow. I love the sparkly stars that function as is.
The title is consistent with the first, and it is a Wicked Business when Wulf is involved.
