So one day not long after discovering Bookbub, I saw there was a book called Luca's Magic Embrace being offered for free for a limited time. It was the second in an erotic paranormal romance series, The Immortals of New Orleans. Not wanting to jump in with book 2, I went ahead and downloaded the first book in the series, Kade's Dark Embrace.
This one did not work for me. Not to say there is nothing redeemable here, but there were scores of problems. Before I get into that, though, here is
THE BLURB:
After a series of girls are ritualistically murdered on the cold streets of Philadelphia, seasoned detective, Sydney Willows, is forced to work with sexy, alpha vampire, Kade Issacson. While working the case, Sydney finds herself inexplicably drawn to Kade, fighting the passion she feels towards him. Kade, determined to solve the case and mete out justice, is captivated by the independent, fiery detective. As he attempts to protect her from a very real murderer, Kade grows concerned that the beautiful, but very human detective, could easily end up dead should she tangle with supernatural forces that are beyond her control.
The investigation leads them into a dark and dangerous world, deep in the heart of New Orleans, where together, they search for the perpetrators of the Voodoo killings. Sydney soon becomes the target of the killer and ends up fighting for her life and love in the Big Easy. If she makes it out alive, will she give into the intoxicating desire she feels for Kade?
MY THOUGHTS:
The writing here needs a lot of work. Dialogue tends to run on too much, Sydney and Kade begin every sentence with each other's name even when it's only the two of them speaking and no one else to possibly be addressing. That's just not realistic.
Successive paragraphs switch from telling us what Sydney is thinking and feeling to what Kade is thinking and feeling, bouncing back and forth. I think it would have been better to stick with letting us into Sydney's mind, leaving Kade more of an enigma, his actions the only evidence we have to judge his motivations.
The plot takes a backseat to the erotica and is entirely forgettable (which is saying something, when it's ritualistic murder we're talking about here). Not enough research was done on realistic police procedure.
The main character is not very likeable. I can tell the author was going for a tough, no-nonsense female protagonist, but she went a little too far with it because Sydney just ends up coming across as a stubborn a-hole.
The erotic scenes were good. However, there were a few situations in which the sexual tension was awkward and unbelievable. Here is a waterlogged corpse noted to have an overwhelming stench of decay turning everyone's stomach, and yet they can hardly stop themselves from tearing each other's clothes off and humping. Here is Sydney just after taking a tumble in fluids we have been told reek or urine, feces, and vomit, but Kade can barely contain his need to take her right then and there. Even horny alpha vamps have to draw the line somewhere.
As I said, not everything here is a loss, and because it's the first book, I can believe that Grosso's novel-writing-know-how may have grown since. And so I will probably eventually get around to reading Luca's Magic Embrace, if only because I hate to own it and not read it (even if I did get it for free). But I'm not in a rush.
MY RATING:
1 booksy
Author's website: http://www.kymgrosso.com/
Fine Kade's Dark Embrace on Amazon
Amazon has the ebook version for free, but no paperback
Find it through Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble has the ebook version for free, and also offers the paperback
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