Last Kiss Goodnight

Confusing world-building mars the launch of bestseller Showalter’s Otherworld Assassins series, in which a bewildering variety of aliens have taken refuge on Earth. Deaf, kindhearted Vika Lukas tries to protect the otherworlders captured by her father, Jecis, who runs a nightmarish zoo. When Solomon Judah, an Allorian employed by a shadowy government agency, is kidnapped, Vika cares for him as she does the other victims of Jecis’s cruel ambitions. Torn between two other-dimensional entities—one that seeks to protect him, one that urges him to embrace his innate violence—Solo first vows to kill Vika once he escapes, but she refuses to be intimidated by his brutish nature or Jecis’s sadism, and Solo begins to fall in love with her. Readers who enjoy a Beauty and the Beast tale with a truly despicable villain may appreciate this story, but they will need to get through the florid prose and some overlong scenes of brutality. Agent: Deidre Knight, the Knight Agency. (Jan.)