I picked up this book as part of the "Recommends Challenge" over at Girls, Guns and Grimoires. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, given that this is my first real foray into female-lead urban fantasy. 
 Overall, this book was okay. 
 For the most part, I felt fairly detached. From the prose, from the characters, from the action. There are a fair number of intense battle scenes in this book, but I had a hard time connecting and visualizing them. Such are the limits of narrating from only one character's point of view, but I don't think it should've been such a struggle for me. 
 Character wise, the only ones I actually cared about were Derek and occasionally Mahon. Both with barely a chapter's worth of screen-time. Kate's "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude made it very difficult for me to relate to her. Sure, I enjoy a tough heroine who can take care of herself, but she was so fixated on posturing and proving herself that she was nearly always looking to provoke a fight. And then, when that all went to hell, I found I had very little sympathy for her. In some situations that's necessary, certainly, but I much prefer someone who is competent, capable and rational. She was very hard and talked shit just because she had something to prove, which was tiresome. She had a few great one-liners and softened into someone a bit more relatable by the end, but still. Curran was much the same. Singularly fixated, not particularly relatable, but not without his moments. Though I was a bit baffled by the last minute "just in case we both die" kissing. And usually I'm a huge fan of couples that bicker with each other and then develop an attraction. But I just didn't feel any chemistry here. And the bickering was rarely amusing. 
 Plot wise, I really enjoyed the immersion into the worldbuilding. There were enough clues to help piece together things before they were completely explained. And the vampire lore was really unique. Still, one of the problems with assuming the reader knows theses things is that there were times when I wanted to explore something in more detail, only to be whisked away somewhere else as the action demanded. The actual mystery itself wasn't terribly compelling and the foreshadowing was weak. And that whole bit with Crest was such a shitstorm. But, on the other hand, there were some peeks at inventive mythos and some truly gruesome and terrifying sections. 
 However, I'm told that this is the weakest in the series, so I think I might be inclined to give book 2 a chance, should I happen upon it.