Romance Quest!: "Sins of The Flesh" by Eve Silver

Usually if I'm going to get put off by a book, it's in the first few pages, not halfway through. This book was an exception.

I accidentally grabbed the third(?) book in a series, and I might see if I can find one of the earlier ones, because Eve Silver's writing style is good. I liked it. She just, at least in this book, got stuck in the middle.

The setting: a paranormal, Masquerade style urban fantasy, where most of the supernatural critters work for gods who do not like each other. Our protagonists: Malthus Krayl; son of Sutekh, ladies man, and soul reaper(? no idea what that is), and Calliope Kane; loyal to Aset (who hates Sutekh), closed off, business-like, and a vampire thingamy-bob.

The beginning is strong: both characters have strong voices, and the meetcute(s) support some good dramatic irony. Malthus' inner thoughts are hella grating (he is a horndog who constantly refers to women as 'females') but at least it's distinctive. Calliope is attracted to Malthus and would really like not to be (and there's an added twist because she had put on a disguise to go to a club and feed on someone... and nearly fed on him by accident and ran away), Malthus wants to work out how to get her into bed because he wants to see if he can (and because his confidence is smarting after a potential bed mate he found at a human club ran away from him for no reason he can work out).

The problem is the conflict doesn't actually progress from there. Like, the non-romantic plot ticks along fine, with it's High Priest Hot Potato-- but the characters' feelings about each other don't. And I don't dislike "I'm attracted to this person and I don't want to be"-- but as a conflict, that cannot be sustained over 300 pages. (It can't be sustained over 150!) Something else needs to be the problem. (I think Eve was aiming for Malthus' "self sacrifice" at that point to change Calliope's mind and shuffle the problem along. Small problem there: the self sacrifice was unintentional, and thus falls flat emotionally. Also, I was bored by that point; it was too little too late.)

...I'm really hoping the problem isn't that I'm picky, and that it's just I don't know how to pick them yet. (I've been listening to Be The Serpent, and I've heard some reasonable sounding recommendations from that. Also, I have another book from the library which seems promising based on the fact its premise made me laugh, which seems like a favourable sign considering the one other romance novel I liked did that too.)