These reviews contain spoilers! Also, they won't make much sense if you haven't read the books.
With that said, let's jump right in!
Vein Of Love by R. Scarlett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Darkness isn't all one shade, sweetheart."
Three centuries ago, Molly Darling’s ancestors signed a contract in blood—daemon blood—to protect themselves from harm. On the eve she turns nineteen, Molly leaves for her birthday party against her parent’s wishes, sick of their warnings about her “betrothal to a demon.”
Except that she’s very much betrothed, and he’s very much a demon—one who’s only agreed to the nuptials to steal Molly’s ancient daemon powers. Brash, arrogant, and built like a Greek god, Tensley Knight keeps showing up to save Molly from otherworldly attacks, only to insult her a moment later.
As Molly learns more about the demon world, she realizes two things: that her family’s safety depends on a successful marriage, while any chance of freedom she’ll ever have calls for Tensley’s demise.
Yet sometimes Molly spots a tortured soul beyond those liquid grey eyes, and there’s no denying the way her skin tingles when Tensley touches it. In Vein of Love, safety requires sacrifice, foe becomes lover, and one must decide whether to kiss...or to kill.
Let me begin this review by congratulating Ms. Scarlett on an awesome debut novel. You go, girl!
I'm being 100% serious when I say the only thing I didn't like about this book were the names of the main characters. What kind of name is Tensley Knight for a dude with Italian ancestry? C'mon, now. How about Giovanni? Luca? Marco? So many strong, alluring, Italian names and the guy is named Tensley? I'm disappointed (although, I'll admit his name was very appropriate, since he was constantly tense LOL).
Also, the editing could have been a tad more thorough. There were a few sentences where words were missing, and others where the possessives lacked the 's.
But, moving on, this book was seriously amazing. I'd been really craving a paranormal, dystopian or fantasy NA at the time, but sadly there aren't very many options out there. There are tons of YA titles that fit the bill, but most books that belong to the New Adult category are contemporary romances, and back then I'd been craving something a little outside the normal realm. And as a grown ass woman, I feel silly reading about 16 year old girls having their first kiss with brooding vampires, tortured angels or whatever (though I read my fair share of YA). I wanted heat and intensity, so YA wasn't cutting it for me in that particular moment.
In that respect, this book came to me at the perfect time! Serendipitous, indeed.
I'm gonna be honest here. The first chapter had me worried. Molly, the female MC, came off as a shallow, idiotic, spineless, scaredy cat. Not the best character introduction. Plus, her name was written every other sentence, which got on my nerves pretty fast. It's not good writing when a character's name appears two times in a five-lines paragraph (and five times in a single page. Yes, I counted them).
But! The rest of the book was nothing like that. Things got pretty intense, pretty fast after Tensley, the male MC, showed up, and from that point on, I was hopelessly hooked (in all fairness, though, Molly continued to be kind of a clueless idiot).
I'm a sucker for books where the main characters strongly dislike each other, but at the same time are desperately attracted to one another. It makes for very tense and hot situations, which I really enjoy. And this book was nothing if not tension filled!
One of the things I enjoyed the most about this story was how Tensley could literally kiss things better when Molly got hurt. It was so very intimate and sensual. The heat was REAL, people! Lusty looks, scorching touches... I still get shivers thinking about it!
And don't get me started on the fact that Tensley was completely terrified of letting any kind of affection bloom between him and Molly. Argh! So much delicious angst. He was a good guy, but after what had happened to his brother (which I'm not gonna talk about here), and given how much he cared about Molly, he was scared witless that the same thing would happen with them. Although I wasn't sure if he was scared for himself or for her.
In typical guy fashion, he didn't know how to deal with his emotions, so he got angry and lashed out at her. Him acting like an asshole every time they got close kinda pissed me off, but at the same time I lived for the angsty moments, so I can't complain too much.
Near the end of the book Tensley refused to have sex with Molly. And in my opinion he was a bit too adamant about it (me thinks the gentleman doth protest too much). I had this sneaking suspicion that he didn't wanna mark her cause he was scared he would get her pregnant if they had sex then, since the love bug
The cliffhanger ending wasn't all that cliffhangery, so don't let that keep you from giving this amazing book a read!
Summing up, yes, this story completely sucked me in and gave me a serious case of the stomach tingles.
Body of The Crime by R. Scarlett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Never trust a demon.
Never trust your heart.
And never trust the woman who holds it.
In Body of the Crime, a beast craved a beauty and oh, how she ravaged him.
Now that I've had time to get acquainted with the characters, let me introduce you to what I picture Molly and Tensley looking like:
 |
| Tensley (Yes, I know Tensley is supposed to be 28, but in all honesty the 10 year age difference makes me a bit uncomfortable, so I'm pretending he's around 25.) |
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| Molly |
Now, that's how you write a cliffhanger! Holy wow, that left me wanting more! I get antsy just thinking about it.
And the worst part is that we didn't even find out whether Molly was pregnant or not (although, c'mon, she totally was!). Actually, that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that book three hadn't been published yet back when I read this. And I totally freaked out about it LOL. I was like, OMG, how am I supposed to wait that long!? That's my default reaction, even if I only have to wait a month. I can't do cliffhangers unless I already have the next book available.Which is why I hate reading unfinished series if I can help it. I always get sucked in, and then I'm left to deal with my cravings for more. I'm so not a patient person.
Once again, this book could also have benefitted from a more thorough editing and proofreading. For example, I noticed several commas missing in the dialogues when a character was directly addressing another character by name. The slightly excessive repetition of names also made an appearance. And I noticed a couple of instances when almost whole sentences would get repeated. This is me being a nitpicky grammar nazi, though, since those little mistakes don't actually have that big of a negative impact on the reading experience.
Molly grew exponentially more badass in this instalment of the Blackest Gold saga. It was almost like she was a whole new character. Gone was the timid, unsure, Upper East Side princess. And, in her place, a confident, strong, kickass daemon (still not sure how to pronounce that word, FYI). Guess I somehow missed the part where she learned how to control her powers LOL. I gotta say, I liked Molly 2.0 better. If she's gonna thrive amongst the demons she has to be able to stand up for herself. And she totally managed to do that in this book. Independence's a good color on you, Molly.
As for Tensley, he slowly learned to process and embrace his emotions (although it's still a work in progress) and I couldn't be prouder! Loving, protective Tenley makes my heart happy.
The whole 'man vs beast' thing vying for control inside of him caught me by surprise, since in the last book it was never hinted that there were two whole separate parts to his personality. It was all very Jekyll/Hyde. He kept referring to his demon like a different entity, and I kept thinking 'but, you are the demon'. IDK, it was slightly confusing.
Another thing that I found confusing was how Tensley got all pissy and felt totally betrayed when he learned Molly had killed a Scorpios demon IN SELF DEFENSE, like, before the whole golden hairpin debacle (so, way before anything had happened between them). And still, he was totally okay when she killed another Scorpios demon (Pearce), also in self defense. What was that all about? It should still be treason no matter which Scorpios she killed, no? Or maybe Pearce isn't a member of Scorpios? I'm glad that she killed him, though. So if Tensley wasn't complaining, then why am I even bothering to point it out? Haha.
I'm so glad they finally had sex! WooHoo! Those scenes were very hot, and all their cuddly moments made my heart melt. There's nothing better than when they comfort each other <3.
I wanna see more Illya in the next book. He was an immensely interesting character. He was just so compassionate, sweet and caring. The farthest thing from a demon, actually. Will something happen between him and Stella, now that September made it abundantly clear that she's not interested in dating him? Hmm...
And, oh, God. I can't wait to see how Molly and Tensley will deal with this (not yet confirmed) pregnancy! He's gonna freak out and it's gonna be awesome! I can't wait! I'm wringing my hands with excitement.
Until next time,
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