How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight #2)

By Jax Garren

Editions: ebook

Expected publication February 11th 2013 by Carina Press

Genre: Adult Steampunk / Romance

Source: NetGalley

Jolie Benoit left her old life behind to become an agent of the Underlight.

Training under Sergeant Wesley Haukon, she’s honing her combat skills, all the while coping with the intense sexual attraction she feels for Hauk. She keeps their friendship casual, but when his high school sweetheart transfers into their division, Jolie finds herself grappling with jealousy.

The Underlight gave Hauk a purpose, but he can’t escape his past completely. The physical and emotional scars from the fire that killed seven fellow Army Rangers will mark him forever. Jolie sends his protective instincts into overdrive, but he’s convinced he’ll never be worthy of her love.

Hauk is determined to keep Jolie from harm. But when the Order of Ananke ambushes them with a new weapon that neutralizes Hauk, making him vulnerable, it’s Jolie who must tap into her hidden strengths to rescue him—or risk losing him forever…
~ Goodreads

Bomy's Flutter: awesome read

World Building: The Underlight continues to fight the Anankes, magic and some steampunk-erish vibes color this world.
Characters: Jolie was awesome, I felt she evolved from the first installment in this series and I liked how believable and not rushed that evolution was. As romantic as it may be, a beautiful independent woman would, in my opinion, have some trouble admitting she's fallen for someone with Hawk's past and issues. I liked how their relationship kept the slow burn vibe, feeling all the more real in this novel-length installment of the series. Hawk rang true as well, and it's perhaps that that I loved most about this series: the romance rings true and feels awesome.
Plot: Aside the romantic arc, there's a lot of action going on, fighting, kidnappings and rescues, all the fun of an urban fantasy as far as I'm concerned.
Writing: Awesome. Fight/action scenes flow beautifully, characters were charming and charismatic, emotion was dealt with in a realistic and sensible way and it all worked to deliver a great reading experience.
Curb Appeal: Instant buy, even if I wouldn't have been dying to read this since I read the first. Awesome, awesome cover, great blurb - fab presentation.

All in all I felt this was a great sequel and managed to make me love the series all the more, I'm loving this and I do recommend it if you like urban fantasy as well as romance in your reads.
And just to make this clear, since lately we've seen some three parts stories from some pubs, this is not a one novel-length story divided into three parts. The first part was a novella that didn't give us the satisfying romantic ending but did tie up its plot and left room for a sequel, it didn't deny the story any resolve or end it with an evil cliffhanger. This one has it's own thing going on from where the first ended and is novel-length, and there's a third one to come that develops Jolie and Hawk's relationship further. This is a series, not one story broken up into tidbits :) I felt compelled to make that observation.