Debra Webb is an author I find very frustrating. She has intriguing ideas and her books usually sound promising. Sometimes her stories live up to them; last year’s Situation: Out of Control and Full Disclosure were particularly good. But her stories can fall short of their full potential due to sloppy execution and a lack of development. This year’s Enforcers miniseries was typically underdeveloped and lackluster. The same holds true with her latest, Urban Sensation.

Rowen O’Connor is a Boston police detective investigating a series of strange murders. Each of the victims had the blood drained from their bodies. The local papers are stirring up reader anxiety by raising the possibility of vampires, an idea Rowen is too practical to consider. Then she receives a call from a mysterious man named Viktor Azarial, who claims to have information related to the case. The man lives in a centuries-old castle he had transported from Europe. He also claims to be a vampire.

Even more disconcerting is the reappearance of Evan Hunter in Rowan’s life. Three years ago they became lovers when Evan, an FBI agent, came to Boston on a case. When he left town, he promised to call her. Instead, he seemed to drop off the face of the earth, and she was never able to find out what happened to him from the FBI. Now he’s back, full of ominous warnings about how her life is in danger. He’s changed in the last few years, and now possesses heightened senses that are hypersensitive to the slightest sight or sound. Rowen wants nothing to do with him, but he intends to protect her whether she likes it or not.

This is the latest in Harlequin Intrigue’s Gothic Romance promotion, although if it weren’t labeled “gothic” it would often be hard to tell. Other than a few particularly atmospheric moments, it’s basically paranormal romantic suspense. Readers expecting more of a traditional Gothic may be disappointed, but that in itself wasn’t a problem for me.

The story is fairly interesting, and Webb is an engaging enough writer to keep it from becoming too boring. At the same time, it moves slowly. Chapter One begins with seven pages of narrative that’s slow, uninteresting, and pointless in the grand scheme of things. It’s just the first of many sections where it felt like the writing could have been tightened. Instead most of it seems like filler.

The pace doesn’t pick up much from there. For most of the first half of the book, Evan keeps uttering vague statements about how Rowen’s in danger without telling her the information she really needs to know. Meanwhile, he and Viktor have these conversations where it’s clear they know what they’re talking about and the reader is left out of the loop. Some readers may enjoy the way the author sustains the sense of mystery as long as she can. For me, it slipped into tedium. It was obvious the author was doing everything she could to drag out the plot, because when Evan finally tells Rowen what’s going on, the story proves to be relatively straightforward and moves easily toward its climax and conclusion. If Evan wasn’t being so needlessly reticent, the book would be shorter.

The characters are no more developed than the plot. Rowen and Evan are opaque characters and we learn little about them outside the constraints of the story. The author fails to provide any insight into who they are as people. I never really cared about them because I never felt like I knew them. Rowen has a dog she adopted after the murder of its owner, and even though it only appears briefly, the dog has more personality than she does. The same problem extends to all the secondary characters, who aren’t developed at all. When the killer’s identity is revealed, it has no real impact, because the reader knows nothing about this person. Who cares that this person is the killer? It could have turned out to be any of the other non-characters and it would have made no difference.

Urban Sensation is too underdeveloped to be memorable. In the end, it’s just another forgettable read from an author who could do – and has done – so much better.