Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich

*Image and Summary taken from goodreads.com

Book: Wicked Appetite

Author: Janet Evanovich

Summary: For centuries, treasure hunters have been eager to possess the stones, undeterred by their corrupting nature. The list is long — Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, to name a few. Now the Stones have found their way to Salem, Massachusetts, and so has Gerwulf Grimoire, adding himself to this rogues’ gallery of power seekers. He’s an uncommonly dangerous man, with a hunger for the forbidden, and a set of abilities that are way beyond ordinary. Abilities that he feels entitle him to possess anything he might desire.

That would include Elizabeth Tucker, the woman he needs to find the Stones. She’s freshly transplanted from New York City to Boston’s North Shore. With a new job as pastry chef at Dazzle’s bakery and an old house inherited from her Aunt Ophelia, her life is pretty much on track …until it’s suddenly derailed by a guy named Diesel, a rude monkey, and a ninja cat.

Lizzy can handle the monkey and the cat. She’s not sure about Diesel. He’s offering up his own set of unusual talents, promising to protect her from Grimoire. The kind of protection that Lizzy suspects might involve guarding her body day and night.

The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy wrath, sloth and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that is wicked. Diesel thinks it also pretty much covers everything that’s fun. And Lizzy thinks Diesel and the Seven Deadly Sins cover everything her mother warned her about.

Release Date: 09/14/10 by St. Martin's Press (first published 09/14/09)

Rating: 3.5/5

To celebrate the upcoming release of Wicked Charms (book 3), I will be reviewing all three books over the next few weeks! 

This book is one that I've had sitting on my shelf for quite a while now, and with the upcoming release of the third book in this series (Wicked Charms), I felt that it was time to finally sit down and read it. I am no stranger to the works of Janet Evanovich, I'm a sucker for the Stephanie Plum series (and even enjoyed the movie), so I was very much looking forward to starting a new series by her. 

I should start off by saying, that I did very much enjoy this book. The comedic approach that Janet Evanovich takes with her books is a nice refreshing take to most other books that I read. I found myself smiling and chuckling at different moments throughout the book and wanting to continue until my eyes could not stay open any longer.

The characters were fun and full of comedy provoking thoughts and actions but I did find that they used the same formula so to speak as the Stephanie Plum series. However, they do have their differences as well which really made the series become its own. I loved the special abilities and the fact that they are called Unmentionables (Harry Potter anyone?). And Diesel, boy do I like Diesel. I felt like he had just the right amount of teasing and seemed very swoon worthy. However I did feel that some of the things he did were not very realistic such as jumping into Lizzy's bed and stripping down as normal without even getting her consent. It would have been much more realistic for him to just crash on the couch. 

Glo was loads of fun. I enjoyed her personality and her crave for supernatural, to be able to cast spells and only have them end up horribly. And honest the thought of her chasing down this run away broom gave me more than a few chuckles. Clara seemed interesting as well, however, we didn't really get to know her much in this book so I'm still unsure of where exactly Lizzy's relationship with her boss really lands. They seem friendly enough in some parts but then in others, I question how far their friendship really extends beyond one in the bakery as it seems to me as if they are friends while at work but outside of work don't hang out much. 

The flow of the story was excellent. I never felt tripped up over anything or like the story was taking forever. And actually, it was the exact opposite, I was flying through the pages and quickly found myself at the back cover long before I thought I would. Some things felt a bit repetitive, such as Carl (the monkey) flipping people off on a good majority of the pages since he was introduced but overall, things kept my interest and the story kept moving at a good pace. 

The overall story line was interesting enough, it provided a lot of laughter and silliness and I thought the idea of having stones of power that represent each of the Seven Deadly Sins was intriguing in its own right. It also made for a lot of fun as each piece brought about a different response to Lizzy causing for some rather interesting conversations between her and Diesel. 

I definitely feel like more could be done with this series to really make it its own. As I've said, the characters are reminiscent of Stephanie Plum and I really would have enjoyed it more if they were more of their own person than an extension of those characters. The book flowed really easily which could be from a large portion of conversation as opposed to descriptive text and I felt like it definitely could have used a bit more description throughout the series, especially descriptions that weren't repetitive such as Diesel being hot, Carl being a rather crude monkey, and Hatchet being rather interested in the Middle Ages. 

That being said though, I did enjoy the book, and I do look forward to reading the next in the series. If you enjoy the Stephanie Plum series, the odds are that you will also enjoy this series. Wicked Appetite is a fun, quick read, and has plenty of action and comedic moments to get you through. The third book in the series, Wicked Charms, will be coming out on June 23, 2015 so keep your eyes posted for it.