Review – Obsession by Jennifer L. Armentrout

He’s arrogant, domineering, and… To. Die. For.

Hunter is a ruthless killer. And the Department of Defense has him firmly in their grasp, which usually doesn’t chafe too badly because he gets to kill bad guys. Most of the time he enjoys his job. That is, until he’s saddled with something he’s never had to do before: protect a human from his mortal enemy.

Serena Cross didn’t believe her best friend when she claimed to have seen the son of a powerful senator turn into something… unnatural. Who would? But then she witnesses her friend’s murder at the hands of what can only be an alien, thrusting her into a world that will kill to protect their secret.

Hunter stirs Serena’s temper and her lust despite their differences. Soon he’s doing the unthinkable—breaking the rules he’s lived by, going against the government to keep Serena safe. But are the aliens and the government the biggest threats to Serena’s life… or is it Hunter?

• The Arum.  I absolutely LOVED getting to see the other side of the story when it comes to the Arum vs. Lux.  Up till this point in the series, we’ve only seen the Arum as the bad guys. In this book, the tables are completely turned and we get to see the reasons behind the war between the Arum and the Luxen.  When seen from the Hunter’s perspective, suddenly the Arum are fighting the evil Luxen and protecting humanity from a huge threat.  This is something that I LOVE in books.  When the lines between the good guys and the bad guys are most decidedly gray.  We definitely don’t see Hunter as evil in this book – in fact, the biggest, baddest bad guys in the book are actually Luxen (with the US government coming in at a close second).  So, who’s good and who’s bad.  Well, just like the humans, there are good and bad Luxen and good and bad Arum – makes it all just that much more realistic.
• Daedalus.  We also got to learn a lot more about Daedalus in this book – Who they are, what they’re trying to do, how ruthless they are.  There are definitely still lots of mysteries, but this book gives us quite a few hints and fills in some holes.
• Hunter and Serena.  From the beginning Hunter and Serena have awesome chemistry together, even when Serena’s terrified of him (which she should be sometimes) and when Hunter is aggravated with her.  Hunter has spent his life feeling a whole lot of nothing, and liking it that way – he reasons that that’s the way the Arum are and anything else will only cause him pain.  So, he’s completely unprepared when he starts to actually care for Serena and he’s not even really sure what to do about it.  Add to that the fact that he is constantly afraid he might kill her if he gets a bit too passionate and can’t help but feed off of her – well, it makes for a complicated romance.  Serena, on the other hand, isn’t sure what she feels about the frightening and yet beautiful alien who seems to be both protecting her and pushing her away.  I was 100% invested in this couple and couldn’t WAIT to see where it all led!