Marjorie M. Liu could write a phone book and I would gobble that stuff up. This is one of those odd series were multiple authors write for it. I don't really have any plans of reading the other books in the series, but this one stands well on its own.

There's a war brewing between vampires, werewolves, and humans. If the war happens humans will have the upper hand. The only way to prevent a massacre is for vampires and werewolves to form some kind of alliance. The problem is that there are some deep prejudices running between the two races. Despite the mistrust and hatred, the vampire and werewolf clans have decided to start negotiating on peace treaty. But several vampire murders threaten to end that treaty when it looks like a werewolf is the one doing the killing. In an attempt to save the negotiations our heroes, Michael and Keeli, team up to find out who the murderer is. Keeli the the granddaughter of the leader of the werewolves and Michael is the vampires' executioner. This combined with his past also makes him an outcast among his kind. Together they have to solve the mystery, while also deal with the fallout of their working together.

Keeli and Michael's relationship was really interesting to watch progress. I loved that the conflicts of them working together and eventually having a relationship aren't pushed aside. The only thing I didn't like is how quickly they fell in love. Its only a matter of days before they start declaring their love. That's a pretty huge leap considering how in their world that could mean the death of their social standings and possibly their lives.

Other than that this was a really great read. I only wish the ending didn't seem so rushed. I would've liked to have seen more of what happened to Keeli and Michael after they found out who the murderer was. ( )

A Romeo and Juliet type of story, but much darker, much more violent. Can a werewolf and a vampire love each other? That is the theme of this novel of two outsiders who find each other facing an investigation of random murders, extreme prejudice, and the grimy, dangerous streets of Crimson City.

I have not read book 1 in the series, but didn't feel like I was missing out on any important information for this story to move forward.

My only disappointment was there were no surprises for me. Well, one minor one, but don't want to provide any spoilers. ( )

This book is the second of the multi-author Crimson City series created by Liz Maverick. I listened to the unabridged audiobook, narrated by Rebecca Rogers.In this urban paranormal romance, vampires and werewolves are barely tolerated second-class citizens in a city run by humans. They are negotiating an alliance, but it's difficult since they hate each other so much. A young werewolf -- the granddaughter of the Grand Dame Alpha, the leader of the werewolves -- and an outcast vampire executioner-for-hire are assigned to solve a series of vampire murders. They fall in love, which is forbidden by all the norms of both of their clans.This is the first paranormal romance I've read (except for the Anita Blake series), and the first book by Liu. So I'm not sure how many of its quirks are quirks of the genre itself, vs. quirks of this author. I found it odd that the vampires heat up bags of blood in the microwave and buy sunblock at the local drugstore when they want to go out during the daytime. And that the werewolves obligingly chain themselves to the bedposts during the full moon so they won't rampage through the city killing everything in sight. But these oddities didn't stop me from finding the book entertaining.I like that money and class are part of the story, although I didn't think it was adequately explained why the vampire protagonist was poor. (In other words, I suspected him of being poor so the reader would like him.)I was worried that I would find the romantic relationship awful, but I didn't - the characters are well matched and they treat each other as equals for the most part. I have a bit of an aversion to romances that turn around "We met each other 24 hours ago, but we are in True Love and Will Always Be Together No Matter What." But that's probably just how the genre works.There's a subtle undercurrent of gender-play in the book, not only with the main protagonists (who are somewhat gender-reversed - she is more kickass and he is more gentle) but also with some other characters. It is nice to have a female protagonist who wears striped tights and has pink hair, instead of the traditional beautiful leggy blonde with boobs out to there.The final third of the book gets a little crazy with plotting and characterization goes a bit off. (I gather from other Liu reviews here that she does tend to have crazy plotting, and that probably wouldn't have bothered me so much but the first two thirds of the book didn't feel that way to me.) I could have done without the Friendly Demon Ex Machina who suddenly shows up and happens to be able to get the protagonists into a completely secure building and have them invisible into the bargain. She speaks in dialect and that makes her feel like something of a racial stereotype or cultural appropriation to me, although it's certainly possible that the author did her research and I'm the one who is ignorant. I also didn't like the too-sudden transformation of the Psycho Bitch From Hell side character into a Devoted Mother. But otherwise I found the ending generally satisfying. ( )

This book was very, very dark and I liked it so much better than the first one in the series (Crimson City). Michael is very tortured and a rogue vampire (a human turned into a vampire about 300 years before) who has committed unspeakable acts and is feared and hated by the born and bred vampires. Keeli Maddox is a werewolf whose grandmother is the Grand Dame Alpha and leader of the werewolves. Keeli knows she is a future leader of her people and is trying to improve their plight. Vampires and werewolves live in completely different worlds; vampires live and fly far above the ground, and werewolves inhabit the underground tunnels and sewers. Vampires are wealthy and werewolves are barely surviving. There is such a huge gap between their two peoples that I just could not see any chance of a HEA for these two until the very end. The plot was fast paced and gripping. Michael and Keeli team up to try to discover who is behind a rash of murders whose victims carry the scent of both vampire and werewolf. The characters were well drawn and the atmosphere was dark and intense. I'm beginning to really like vampire romance but I'm a wimp about some things:) But one scene in the nightclub made me gag. I loved how Michael falls in love with Keeli at first sight. She is much more wary of him and takes a lot of convincing so there was lots of sexual tension. The love scenes are hot when they finally get together. (Grade: B+) ( )

This isn't my normal genre, to be fair. I'm trying to research books for a non-reader friend. But I read the author's blog, and she's great. ( )