Taken turned out to be a very readable Paranormal Romance. Not taking itself too seriously, the Hero was not your average Were and the heroine was pleasantly believable. The twists and turns in the narrative kept it interesting until the inevitable happy ending. ( )

Sophie extracated herself from an abusive relationship and found a life, found a purpose and now she's going to study but before that her friend Lucy insists on them going out for a night of dancing and fun. What Sophie doesn't realise is that this is the start of something different for her life. Her friend is killed by vampires and she's kidnapped by shapeshifters and they seem to believe that she will have a place in their tribe, to play a pivotal part in their lives, only they can't seem to explain things in a way that makes sense to her.

I liked Sophie, I really liked how she kept trying to escape when she believed that those holding her were at best delusional and at worst just like her ex who abused her and belittled her. She will have to face up to more demons before coming through the other side but I really liked her and how she insisted on standing on her own two feet.

Entertaining, even if I did have some issues with the communication between the two leads, but overall I liked it. Nothing stellar but entertaining ( )

One night. One night for fun and dancing before she buckles down to study for exams and figure out how to pay the rent. Sophie knows it's a bad idea, but Lucy's convincing, and what can what night really hurt?

Zach's family is on the run. Hitting the nightclub on their way through town - using fast hands for some quick cash - that should be business as usual. Except, it's not.

Vampires, caracajou and majir... oh, my. ( )

This book was meh. ( )

Yeah. I definitely like Lilith Saintcrow's romances better than her straight work. I need the happy ending. This was extremely dark, for a romance - darker than the other Nocturnes I've read - and I see themes that are familiar from the Dante Valentine books, like overloading the heroine, changing her, and the style of the rooftop battle. But here there's a lot more of a happy ending - and one major thing that made this better than Dante was that we get to see inside Zach's head almost as often as Sophie's. There isn't that question of what exactly he intends - we the readers know what he wants, long before Sophie does. So philosophy aside - it's an interesting world. I'm not sure - I've only read a couple Nocturnes - whether it's a shared universe (in which case this is an oddly different slant from what I've seen before) or if Nocturne is a style and this is a new universe. Either way it makes me want to check out more Nocturnes and learn more about the world/worlds. And were-wolverines are...interesting! I'm not certain about the others - raccoons or something. And the obvious bears, cats, and (referenced) wolves. Those get common names as well as obscure ones, for whatever reason. (And now I need to make sure it's wolverines - or badgers, or ferrets (but those are too small)...yes, it is) Definitely mustelids, at least. As I said, interesting universe. New twist on vampires, odd sorts of spirits and the shamans who can hear them...neat new stuff all over the place. Not, actually, much romance as such. Zach is overwhelmingly attracted, Sophie is recovering from abuse, and basically all the physical touches are either him holding back and trying not to scare her or him grabbing her to protect her from (yet another) enemy. And it ends as soon as she's settled into her new role, before they get into the details of their relationship. Oh - it's a little different angle, but there's also the standard Saintcrow trope of "powerful (magical) woman, desperate protective man". ( )