** spoiler alert ** Before I start with my review of Ms. Frank's HUNTING JULIAN let me say that I've read 'Jacob' (***) and liked it. One of my daughters read the entire series and enjoyed all of the books. I am always looking for that elusive paranormal romance that will draw me in and take me away for a few hours.

The setting was interesting: The Beneath (below the Earth). Most of the inhabitants looked like humans but were aliens. The men needed human women for their gifts of reproduction and energy. A plague had invaded their world years before and left their women decimated. It fed off the hormone estrogen and with less children being born their society was dying. Eventually the ratio of men to women was 200:1. Hmmm...pretty good, right?

Julian is a gatherer and his job is to find the human women who can help support his world. The women who go to The Beneath choose to voluntarily. One of the main ways the women 'give' this world their energy is by having sex. When Julian meets Asia (a modern-day bounty hunter) he realizes she is his life mate and kidnaps her. When she arrives at The Beneath she finds she cannot go back without complications. There is more to the story but I won't reveal anything because I'll give it all away.

As to the one star rating: I didn't find the heroine, Asia, likeable. Though I knew she was written as a strong female I bristled at most of her behavior. She continually used strong profanity. If this doesn't bother you than you shouldn't have a problem reading the book.

I accepted Julian's behavior because he was an alien and I knew he meant well. Though he lived on Earth for some time he grew up on The Beneath and tried to acclimate Asia to his world. What I did have a problem with was the plot. Most of the time Julian and Asia fought. I have no problem with a romance and tension between the main characters but the storyline was fickle and didn't make sense sometimes. I also struggled with some secondary characters and their personalities. While this scenario contained a portion of romance and action it eventually suffered due to a lack of a coherent story.

This book is the first in a series; STEALING KATHRYN was released in April, 2010 and Ms. Frank did a good job creating a world that could be believable. Let me reiterate the word COULD. We'll see what happens. Hopefully future books will earn more stars then this one did.