Review: Kinked by Thea Harrison

Kinked: Aryal and Quentin Caeravorn

(Elder Races #6)

Summary:

From Goodreads.com

Two opponents must confront the cause of their obsessive fury in the latest Novel of the Elder Races…

As a harpy, Sentinel Aryal is accustomed to dealing with hate, but Sentinel Quentin Caeravorn manages to inspire in her a burning ire unlike anything she’s ever known. Aryal believes the new Sentinel to be a criminal, and vows to take him out as soon as the opportunity arises. But the harpy’s incessant wrath has pushed Quentin to the limit, and forces him to make a deadly vow of his own.

To put an end to the conflict, Dragos, Lord of the Wyr, sends them on a reconnaissance mission to the Elven land of Numenlaur. Forced to work together, Aryal and Quentin’s mutual antagonism escalates. Each fight draws forth more passion—culminating in an explosively sexual confrontation. But when their quest reveals real danger, Aryal and Quentin must resolve their differences in ways beyond the physical, before the entire Wyr is threatened.

Review:

Kinked by Thea Harrison is the newest installment in one of my favorite series, the Elder Races. Thea Harrison has a great sense of humor and her characters are memorable and loveable. Wicked is another great installment in this fun series. Kinked takes place months after the Sentinel Games, tensions are riding high between Aryal and Quentin, Ayral has been investigating Quentin for a long time and things are finally coming to a head between them, and Dragos has had enough. Ayral and Quinton are sent from New York to an Other Land to work out their differences and to check to make sure nothing has happened to the Other Land since it is no longer occupied. Aryal and Quentin quickly realize that there is more to their tension then the mutual hatred they thought they were harboring, they realized a lot of the tension is sexual. Both Aryal and Quentin are sexually dominate and part of the fun is seeing who's going to be on top.

As with all Thea Harrison novels her trademark sense of humor prevails in this book, both Quentin and Aryal have sharp tongues and even sharper wit. They are both intelligent, funny, dangerous and thoroughly alpha. A lot of the fun of this book is watching two Alphas battle it out to be on top. Both are sexually dominate with a more then a bit of kink to their sexual preferences. They make a bargain, an arrangement of sorts, but their arrangement gets thrown to the side when all is not what it is supposed to be in the Other World and all of a sudden a simple mission becomes significantly more dangerous as they are attacked and Aryal may never be the same. I swear when Aryal is thinking about what had happened to her, she about had me in tears, a couple of times. Part of her was crushed, and it crushed more than just her bones. Aryal is a fierce warrior and a wild spirit to see her broken like that is disheartening, but its Quentin that unexpectedly help pull her out of it. Aryal and Quentin are both extremely passionate in nature and love as much as they hate so when their hate turns, is their hate to turn to love? It’s fun to watch them try to figure it out.

While the name of this book is called Kinked, it’s not very kinky and probably the least steamy of all of the Elder Races books. I think I know where Harrison was going with this but it didn’t quite make it there. She put two dominates together and wanted to watch them work it out, take turns but it mostly ended up being a lot of talk and little action. They did come together but mostly it was pretty vanilla and tame. Luckily, the rest of the story was action packed and kept the pages turning. Their mission was definitely interesting and takes a very dangerous turn very quickly when spirit wolves attack and a powerful witch comes at them, things take an even more dangerous turn when they are thrown bloodied and crushed with no access to their magic and healing powers in a dungeon where they find three missing elves on the brink of death. We are taken on a roller coaster of powerful emotion and ferocious action. All in all another great story from Thea Harrison can’t wait for the next!