Brighter Than the Sun by Darynda Jones

This is pretty much book 1 plus some extras from Reyes' POV. It is totally readable after book 1 without any major spoilers, and after the first few chapters of book 3 with none at all.

In some ways, I wish I had read parts of this novella before the first book, because it shifted a lot for me, and I wish I'd read the whole thing at any point between books 3 and 6 for two main reasons. First, I think I would find Charley's antics in books 6-8 more tolerable if I'd seen her through his eyes first.

Second, we also get full clarification of what was implied in the first couple of books re: consent being mutual. It is very common in UF for the characters to be overtaken by supernaturally driven sexual impulses that override conscious decision making, leading to what can be experienced by readers as dubious consent. I assumed that was the case here, and I guess it kind of is, but it's also not, and I wonder if we're going to get a peek at those first encounters through her eyes again now that she knows her true name and has access to more memories (or rather will again when she recovers from the end of book 8). Either way, it was nice to see it laid out clearly that Charley was more than an active and enthusiastic participant, actually taking the lead in their first encounters - a fact of which she is not consciously aware as she narrates them thus far in the series.