VERY Entertaining and I’m Not Wild About Paranormal or Suspense

I’ve read a few paranormal romance novels that I enjoyed but they are VERY few and far between. Generally, I just can’t get into them and I quit reading suspense about a year ago because my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I have a lot of other things going on in my life that are making me anxious/worried so I don’t want to read anything that might add to that.However, I started this story and just could NOT put it down. I really enjoyed the paranormal aspect of it and the suspense was….refreshing. I got lost in this story in a very good way. I liked it so much I bought the next installment and if it’s even half as good as the first, I’ll probably be getting the 3rd installment as well.I’m kind of shocked really. Off the top of my head, the only other paranormal romances I can think of that I really liked were “A Hunger Like No Other” by Kresley Cole and some of the J.R. Ward Black Dagger Brotherhood Vampire novels. This book is very different than those but still a great read.This story felt believable to me and the paranormal aspect was not convoluted or complicated. I really liked the heroine Max. She felt like a real person, with both admirable traits and flaws too. I see that some other reviewers didn’t really like the erotic details found in the book. I think the sex was intrinsic to this story.**Possible Spoilers**If you’ve ever known anyone in real life who has gone through horrible abuse as a child, you’ll probably recognize some of the coping mechanisms in the heroine of this book. She uses sex as a coping mechanism in some ways and sometimes to keep people from getting too close to her. I felt the author wrote this aspect of the story so well! I have a good friend in real life who went through very much the same experiences as Max (heroine) and coped in much the same way but once she began understanding the “why” of things, she was able to become more comfortable with herself and not act on the impulses. Even Oprah once said that her abuse caused her to become promiscuous at a point in her life because of esteem/power issues. I wouldn’t think of anyone who had been through such trauma to be “loose” or “trampy”. They are just getting by in the only familiar way they know.Though Max is the total antithesis of how I have lived my own life, the author wrote her in such a way that I just felt I could understand her. Also, being an adult female, great sex is a part of my life and quite frankly, I sometimes pick books just so I CAN read something erotic.Just an FYI: The sex is graphic but it’s certainly NOT the whole story. It’s just one aspect that I felt made the story believable and entertaining.**End of Spoilers**Lately I’ve been reading lots of light romance and lots of non-fiction military history books so this was a welcome break and I can hardly wait to read the next installment. I give this story a good, solid 4.5 stars.Even if you think (as I did) this story isn’t something you’d find enjoyable, you might give it a try anyway. I’m really glad I didn’t miss this one.