I can't remember what made me pick up this book / series in the first place. But I'm really glad that I found it. This is my 3rd re-read of the series (in anticipation of Hard Bitten's release in a few days). I love it when I find a series of books that I can go back and read again and again, and still pick up new little tidbits about things that will happen in future books. I think that shows good planning by the author (hopefully it's not all just chance!). 
 I will admit this book might seem full of a lot of information. I mean we are learning about the Vampire world at the same time as Merit, and it's not all the same as the legends we are used to. I like the house system that Neill developed for this series. The sense of loyalties and oaths. Usually in vampire stories I feel like the vampire is the "loner" even if they are in a group of other vampires. Here, the work as a house they defend the house name and it's master. It's an interesting take. Makes it not seem like your typical vampire novel which are not scarce these days. 
 One of the big things that I was surprised to find the first time I read it was the wit and humor in the book and how natural it seemed. There were times that I was reading an exchange between Mallory and Merit and the dialogue flowed so well between the two that I could really picture these people having this conversation. 
 That's one of the things that I've come to appreciate in Chloe Neill's writing is the friendships she writes about. They are very believable and they are people that I would like to be friends with. Someone to throw barbs back and forth with but end up laughing at the end. 
 Of course we also have Merit and Ethan. I must say what a great amount of written sexual tension there is between these two. Since I've already read these books before I have thoughts on the way things develop later on, but I'm only going to stick to what we see here. Obviously they are both attracted to one another. I don't really understand Ethan's aversion to liking her. He at one point states that he's not too happy about having feelings for her as much as she isn't happy about it either. Sometimes I don't know if I can believe Merit's point of view. Obviously she's seeing what she believes to be the truth (all of his looks of disapproval), but I don't always think she's seeing what is truly there. But we have no other point of view for the books so we have to take what Merit is telling us and go with it. 
 I really love this series. The books continue to get better and better.