By the time I read The Courier, the third book in the "Wildside" series, I'd figured out the formula. There's a heroine who is uncomfortable with her supernatural abilities (or at least untrained). There's a hero who is a total player and unwilling to commit, and he is both comfortable and trained to use his supernatural abilities, and luckily enough, he suspects that the heroine may be his "mate" which counteracts all of his deeply ingrained sowing-his-wild-oats habits. The heroine is always wary of the hero, finding it impossible to resist him but fearing that he will simply take advantage of her and run.

And then there are the goblins. There's always a new city to destroy - and to give Jackson credit, she always re-imagines her cities - in this case New Orleans - in a creative way, and she gives a real sense of place, lots of good, evocative description of the environment. There's always a Big Baddie to defeat. And not much is left of the city by the end.

I think that "The Courier" was well-plotted; I felt like in Traveler and in Outsiders the hero & heroine had it a little too easy, but in The Courier Lyris and Roman/Romeo have to struggle for their victory and suffer pretty serious setbacks on the way to a happy ending.

I admit that I never found Roman/Romeo particularly appealing - he is very tall and very skinny - and this might have been part of the reason why I didn't totally love this book.
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Liked it when I first read it but have no desire to re-read. Same alternate world as Traveler and Outsider. ( )

very good book ( )