PLAYING WITH FIRE

Author: Katie MacAlister ISBN: 9780451223784 5/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: NAL/Signet

Gabriel Tauhou, the leader of the silver dragons, can't take his eyes off May Northcott—not even when May, who has the unique talent of being able to hide in the shadows, has slipped from everyone else's sight. May, however, has little time for Gabriel—not when she's hiding from the Otherworld law, hunting down a blackmailer, and trying to avoid a demon lord's demands. But her ability to withstand Gabriel's fire marks her as his mate, and he has no intention of letting her disappear into the darkness she seems to prefer. Then May is ordered to steal one of Gabriel's treasures—an immensely important relic of all dragonkin—and he must decide which to protect: his love or his dragons...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

PLAYING WITH FIRE is the first in Katie MacAlister's Silver Dragon series and once more plunges the reader into the her 'Otherworld' universe.  Like the Aisling Grey novels before it, the heroine and hero don't come together by the end of the book for their 'happily-ever-after', but do begin the journey towards a relationship.

May Northcott is a doppelganger  and as such can shadow walk, a useful skill when your occupation is that of a high end thief. Unfortunately she is more or less bonded to the high Demon Lord Magoth and subject to his whims and desires.  Magoth is one slick customer!  He didn't become High Demon Lord for no reason.

Gabriel is just wonderful.  It helps that he is modeled after the very gorgeous Jason Momoa, but he also seemed so lost and bewildered because of the obstacles in his and May's path.  I think he would have been quite happy to say 'You're my mate, let's get with the mating, screw the world', but alas, love is never easy!

May also is a great heroine.  I love her with very few qualms, most of which come from the fact her 'twin' sister Cyrene, the one that had Magoth make her in the first place and is a naiad, is such a burdensome person.  Several times it is stated that a 'doppelganger is the exact duplicate of the original', so I don't understand why the two would be so different in temperament and intelligence.  Where May has common sense, Cyrene is oblivious and tra-la-ling in the fields (or any body of water she comes across).  She irked me beyond words.

The interactions between May and Gabriel are great. I felt bad for them both.  In such an impossible situation I doubt I would hold up so well.  I like the Magoth and May scenes better, however, because he is sex on two legs and almost every word that comes out of his mouth fits into three categories: seduction, violence or both.  He's shameless, unrepentant, and I'm sure I shouldn't find his antics quite as funny as I do, but there you have it.

This does inhabit the same world as both of MacAlister's other series—the vampiric Dark Ones books and the Aisling Grey, Guardian books (which is about another Dragon sept, the Green dragons)—but other than shortcutting the politics and behaviors of the dragons, nothing is much needed to know beforehand. 

The second book, UP IN SMOKE, is due out in October 2008.

Alexandra Cenni