Wolf in the Shadows by Marcia muller

Sharon is a private investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative in San Francisco. Her lover, Hy Ripinsky, has disappeared and she is searching for him. At the same time, All Souls offers her a "promotion" - a desk job managing investigators and paralegals, and that doesn't hold much appeal for her. Sharon's search for Hy leads her to RKI, a security agency with questionable practices. Hy was delivering a 2 million dollar ransom for RKI when he went missing, so they assumed he'd stolen it. Sharon agrees to find Hy, but first she must shake the agents RKI has tailing her.

My favourite line from the book - "Beware of the wolf in the shadows. He is watchful and patient, and when he catches you he will eat you up - skin and bones and heart."  

A really good mystery/thriller with a touch of romance.  Well written, fun read with lots of twists and turns that kept me interested.

Night's Honour by Thea Harrison

On the run from her former employer, Tess knows that she's vulnerable on her own amongst the Elder Races. That's why she decides to audition to become the human attendant of a powerful Vampyre of the Nightkind demesne. But while her position affords her the safety she seeks, her protector turns out to be more than she bargained for.

The right-hand man of the Nightkind King, Xavier del Torro is both terrifying and alluring. While his true nature frightens Tess, she can't ignore the appeal of his innate sense of integrity and self-restraint. Thrown into Xavier's world, Tess must quickly learn to navigate the dangers-both to her life, and to her heart. But the biggest threat comes from her own past . . . 

Romance with action.   The action started straight away, the romance took a while.  It was actually a pleasant change that the characters got to know each other a bit before they jumped into bed.

I enjoyed this enough to go looking for more in the series.

A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski

The planet Shora is covered completely by water, giving it the name The Ocean Moon. Its inhabitants, all female, have lived peacefully for tens of thousands of years, peacefully co-existing with all the creatures of the planet. That is, until the Valan traders from the neighboring planet of Valedon come, bringing with them pollution and a terrible stonesickness.
To understand the Valans, two Sharers leave for Valedon with the hope of sharing learning with them: Usha the Inconsiderate and her lovesharer, Merwen the Imaptient, who believes deep down that Valans are humans, too, like the Sharers of Shora. For her to prove this, she must teach a Valan the ways of Shora, and after their ordeal on Valedon, they bring home with them a young stonecutter's son, Spinel.
As Spinel's learnsharing begins, the Patriarch, protector of Valedon, wants to bring Shora into its folds in order to make use of its valuable resources such as minerals and fish. His Envoy dispatches a military unit to move relations along, at first with kind words. When that goes nowhere, he resorts to terrorism, both ecological and physical. Undaunted, the Sharers, unaccustomed to useless killing, fight back with pacifism and intelligence, hoping to bring an end to this unwanted presence on their homeworld.

This is an intriguing ocean world with its own culture and biological adaptions. Particularly clever are the clickflies—insects that are both a living computer and a communications network.  An excellent if slow read with great world-building and characters.