Red Hot Books

Gena Showalter's "Blacklisted" is a YA novel set in the Alien Huntress world. Our hero is Erik, who was a secondary character in the previous book, "Red Handed." When we saw him last, he was on the run, branded a drug dealer. His heroine is 18 year-old Camille, a regular girl with a crush on the wrong boy. She tries to get close to Erik, and gets thrown inside a world she didn't know existed.

PLOT SPOILERS:
Camille has an uber-crush on Erik, who she has seen in the halls of high school. She and a friend follow him to a club one night and she gets caught up in a bust designed to bring him down. She ends up on the run with Erik, learning he's not a bad guy after all. In fact, he has sacrificed his good name to help aliens who need the drug he's selling to survive.

WHAT WORKS:
I liked seeing Phoenix and the other girls featured in Red Handed. Even Ryan and Mia showed up --and I'm a sucker for reoccurring characters in a series. The love scene was sweet and slightly racier than I thought I would get in a YA... but VERY tame compared to most Showalter books.

WHAT DIDN'T:
My only gripe with this book was that it flew by and seemed short. I can't be sure without a word count... maybe it just went so fast because it was a good and an easy read.

OVERALL:
I liked it. I give it 4 stars, even though I would have loved to see Camille and Erik take that next step.