Hunting Julian
Jacquelyn Frank
Zebra, Jan 2010, $6.99
ISBN: 9781420104257

In Fort Lauderdale, bounty hunter Asia Callahan observes Julian Sawyer who has sex with a different girl every night. However, she watches him because thirteen females vanished across the country including her sister Kenya after meeting him. She knows his pattern and vows to learn what happened to her sibling and prevent number fourteen. Asia enters the Pussy Willow nightclub where Julian moves in on her. At his apartment, he grabs her throat and says she emits no sexual odor. Asia tries a jujitsu attack that draws pink blood. Julian picked her like her sister as a Chosen, but instead needs her as his zini. He mentally rapes Asia, but stops short of the physical. Instead they enter a portal to his world.

Julian explains to the Ampliphi leaders that his days as a gatherer are over as the human is his kindra. His companion Ariel is elated to see Julian until he introduces her to Asia as his kindra. He tells Ariel he will retire soon and informs Asia she is in the “Beneath” plane below that of the earth where his people are starving. As she struggles to adjust, some leaders want her dead while Julian needs her to come to him as he wants her, but his people need them to feed off their sexual energy.

Readers will be hooked from the moment Julian takes Asia to his dimension as the other realms premise comes across quite powerfully real even the need for sexual energy fueling this odd world with edifices hanging on nets. The lead couple is an interesting pairing as he needs her while she rejects him for taking her against her will leading to his major frustrations. Although the Ampliphi should have stopped the villainess long ago as she was hurting those dependent on her, fans will relish this terrific science fiction romance.

Harriet Klausner