Eileen Wilks debuted the magically sensitive heroine, Lily Yu, and her would-be werewolf lover, Rule Turner, in the short story anthology, Lover Beware. I found this short story very enjoyable and looked forward to Lily’s future adventures. However, in expanding her stories from the shorter format to full-length novel, Wilks added a great deal of detail which unfortunately just bogs down the plot and suspense factor of her latest Lily Yo novel..

Lily Yu is a magical sensitive. This is a very rare gift. Essentially, Lily can feel the presence of magic, but can’t personally be affected by it. In an America that is newly coming to terms with the presence of magical and sometimes criminal beings, Lily is very useful. In a short period she’s gone from being a regular cop to being an FBI agent in the Magical Crimes Division. She’s also gone from being an individual to being part of a unit. Recently she and Rule Turner, prince of the Nokolai werewolf clan now share a mate bond, and she’s struggling with the physical and emotional parameters of that bond.

More immediately Lily has the problem of finding Patrick Harlowe, who is in possession of a magical staff with mystical and deadly properties. Harlowe appears to be behind a recent spate of murders involving young women, and Lily and Rule are determined to stop him before he kills again.

There are two main problems with this book, first among them the aforementioned conflict, which shifts abruptly, leaving a number of questions unanswered and requiring more world-building in an already overstuffed novel. The second half of the novel is in fact more interesting and unique, but it is so different from the book’s beginning that it feels like an entirely different story – almost like Wilks is writing episodically rather than working on a story with a specific beginning, middle, and end.

The book’s second and largest problem is its excessively detailed paranormal universe. Frankly this universe was a lot more comprehensible when it was backdrop for a necessarily less complex short story. Mortal Danger has a cast of thousands, and each character has distinct magical gifts. Perhaps it would have been easier to understand had I read its predecessor, Tempting Danger, but I didn’t. The book’s main storyline – Lily’s search for Patrick Harlowe and the magical staff – is fine. What’s hard to wade through is the constant introduction of new characters, each of whom is magically distinct. Every time the plot twisted and danger threatened, Wilks would have to go into explanations of how each character would and could be magically effective against that threat. This universe contains several different kinds of werewolves as well as trolls, the faerie, dryads, dragons, demons, shamans, witches, sorcerers, and gods. It also has different realms – including a hell which isn’t Hell – and the rules of magic are different in each realm. The constant stream of explanation required to make this all relevant and comprehensible felt like nothing more than headache-provoking interruption.

There is nothing wrong with Wilks’s prose, but her characterization will seem a bit recycled to those who have read and enjoyed Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris. The only character that makes any sort of an arc over the course of the book was a demon with an annoying tendency to be sexually vulgar.

Ultimately, finishing Mortal Danger was a bit of a chore. There were individual enjoyable scenes, and things got more interesting in the book’s second half, but I had to force myself to wade through far more detail than could be considered enjoyable in order to write this review. And as such, I can’t really recommend it.