I thought about stopping when I hit book three, until the location of her books caught my interest. I think I shall have to read more. It is fascinating to see stories set in Russia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. I am really starting to feel the Asian influence in the stories, which is something I have not seen in other books. I think this is a marker of what is possible in urban fantasy, when the stories are written by a WOC. The love at first woo woo can get annoying, and in many places gets in the way of the story; however, I am no longer reading for the story, I am reading for the setting. I think in the Red Heart of Jade she worked harder to make the romance a bit more plausible than in the first two books.
I really think she has the potential to step outside of the paranormal romance genre and move straight into traditional urban fantasy. It is clear that she has a story tell and the dependency on romance is completely unnecessary. It’s almost like she is afraid to just create one character as a protagonist and follow the story all the way through. Behind all of the l lurve you, there is a story buried there, and if she would just focus on that, people would not be tempted to skip entire sections of the book.
