Release Day Review: Made For Sin by Stacia Kane

Made For Sin
Stacia Kane
Release: August 30, 2016
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ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

Karen Marie Moning raves that Stacia Kane “delivers dark, sexy urban fantasy at its finest.” Now Kane introduces her most addictive antihero yet: a Las Vegas PI who makes his own luck—and embodies everything that’s oh-so-right with Sin City.

A lot of bad hands get dealt in Vegas, but E. L. Speare may be holding one of the worst: He’s cursed with the need to commit sins, and if he misses his daily quota, there’s hell to pay—literally. Fortunately, his hometown affords him plenty of chances to behave badly.

But Speare’s newest case really has him going out on a limb. The right-hand man of a notorious crime boss has been found dead in a Dumpster—minus his right hand, not to mention the rest of his arm. What catches Speare’s attention, however, is that the missing appendage was severed clean by a demon-sword, a frighteningly powerful tool of the underworld.

Speare’s out of his element, so he turns to a specialist: Ardeth Coyle, master thief, dealer in occult artifacts, and bona fide temptress. Ardeth’s hotter than a Las Vegas sidewalk on the Fourth of July, but she’s one sin Speare has to resist.

The dismembered corpses are piling up, unimaginable evil lurks in the shadows, and if this odd couple hopes to beat the odds, Speare needs to keep his hands off Ardeth, and his head in the game. 

Review:
You might have noticed we're big fans of Stacia Kane's Downside series around here. Made For Sin is not a Downside novel, and is really nothing like one. It actually has a lot more in common with Kane's earlier Megan Chase series.

Las Vegas P.I. E.L. Speare has a demon inside him. He's not possessed precisely, since he's in control most of the time. But he has to continually feed it sins to keep that control. He's a tortured bad boy, but not by choice. His approach to his partnership with Ardeth is that "I want her, but I'm not good enough" that you see a lot in romances. Telling the story entirely from his point of view kept it from really feeling like a romance, but for the first few chapters I was waiting for the POV change.

I'm a big fan of paranormal detective stories and I love the Las Vegas setting. I just feel like this is all something I've seen before. Admittedly not all in the same place, but I still feel like there's nothing new here. There are no twists in the murder mystery plot, though the ending was interesting and dark and sounds like the beginning of a series. I'd certainly give Speare another chance to wow me if it becomes one.

Made For Sin is fine. I liked it. It was quick read that entertained me on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I just didn't love it like I wanted to.

    

3  stars