ASIN: B00A2819G4
ISBN-13: 978-1476700199
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Line: Pocket Books
Release Date: Sep 24, 2013
Pages: 400
Digital Retail: 7.99
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Genre: Paranormal
Heat Level: Hot
Rating:
The first installment in a sexy new paranormal romance series by Larissa Ione, author of the bestselling Demonica series!
Nicole Martin was only eight years old when she narrowly survived a massacre: her family’s vampire slaves rebelled and killed everyone in her household. Twenty years later, Nicole now dedicates herself to finding a vaccine against vampirism…and eradicating the gruesome memories that give her nightmares.
Riker, a member of the wild vampire Moon Clan, is haunted by his own demons—his wife Lorraine had been captured and enslaved by the Martin family. It was during a botched escape attempt that she was killed, along with their unborn child. Still wracked with grief and anger, Riker is now fueled solely by the desire to rescue vampire slaves…and slaughter their owners.
When Riker stumbles upon Nicole in a chance meeting, he immediately recognizes her as a member of the Martin family that once enslaved his wife—and she recognizes him as the wild vampire she saw kissing a pregnant slave in the moments before her violent death—an image that has haunted her dreams for years.
When Riker kidnaps Nicole and they spend a night together in a cave on the way back to his clan, suddenly they begin to realize that they aren’t as different from one another as they may have thought—and they’re finding themselves drawn to one another…
Review
Ione is the Queen of Paranormal Romance
She proves it with this new version of vampire. Throw everything you thought out the window and get ready for a new breed. There’s Native American legend involved, which just kicks up the awesome to another level. There are vampires being trafficked for slavery, their blood, and experiments. In the middle of all this you have clans of vampires hiding and living in forests trying to survive in a world where they’re hunted. Action, high stakes, death a good possibility, hot sex, and bonds of love that form from the ashes of it all— that’s what it’s like when you read a Larissa Ione novel, and this one gives you all that and more.
Character-wise Riker and Nicole are seriously messed up. Both have experienced loss due to the opposite species, and it appears like nothing can heal that rift. Yet when Riker saves Nicole’s life, the tables turn. She saves his as well and suddenly there’s this potential for the mess to turn into a hot mess. The chemistry between the two characters is love/hate all the way. They can’t deny the attraction, but don’t want to examine what the future holds. I have a bit of difficulty with love/hate relationships because they walk a fine line and I think authors can either make it really good or really bad. In Riker and Nicole’s case it’s really good. Both characters are tough, yet sensitive. They share a lot of trait personalities, including taking blame or guilt for things that aren’t their fault. All of this creates great conflict and room for some miraculous growth, which occurs thankfully.
Plot and pacing is spot on. Ione never gave me a chance to recover before the next piece of action or life-changing moment occurred. There was a lot of fast reading, then stopping to go back because I skipped some important details in a few sentences in my desperation to know what was happening. From the opening to the end Ione bit feeds historical information and lore about the vampires, and the current state of the vampire world she’s created. There’s very little info dump, and more action. I like action. I will say that at times I leaned toward the idea that Nicole and Riker were too emo, but the love/hate thing provided a good reason and backdrop for the extra angst.
Overall, if you’ve liked paranormal romance in the past, but shied away because you think it’s all the same then read this before you abandon the genre completely. For those just entering the world of paranormal romance Larissa Ione is a pick you won’t regret.
Reviewed by Landra