AUTHOR: CJ England
PUBLISHER: Aspen Mountain Press
LENGTH: Short story (roughly 12k)
GENRE: Paranormal erotic romance
COST: $2.49
When Teran runs from an attack from some of the men in her village, she is rescued by Sebastian, a vampire who resides in the forest outside her home. He takes her home, where he becomes entranced by her, taking her as lover and more. Teran is touched by his protective instincts, but as soon as he breaks his promise not to invade her mind by enthralling her, she vows never to give in to him. Can there ever be trust so that they can go on?
Rape is always a touchy subject in romances. Though I remember a lot of them in the romances I read growing up, I was too young then to really appreciate the emotional impact of it, or the implications of such a violent act. It’s not done nearly as much anymore, at least not in the books I read, but I chose to buy this book anyway. The premise sounded mildly intriguing, and I hoped that it might be a touching dramatic story.
The story I actually got bordered on really bothering me. Sebastian has the capability of enthralling people, and he intends to do that to Teran to feed from her. But she’s a woman who needs to have control, and makes him promise not to do it. He agrees, he feeds, all is well with the world. Except for the fact that now he wants to do more than feed and he drank too much and Teran is passed out. So he waits until she wakes up to seduce her, but lo and behold, Teran is a virgin. So, because Sebastian doesn’t want to hurt her, he enthralls her in the middle of the act to take away the pain of losing her virginity. As soon as Teran realizes what he did, she announces she can’t trust him, won’t ever trust him, and will never give herself to him again. Sebastian is of the mind that her mouth says one thing, but her body says something else, and sets out to persuade her – over and over and over again – that she really does want him.
In essence, is Sebastian really all that different from the men who chased after her? He uses the excuse that her body is willing, but completely ignores how she feels about it. I think he’s a lot more like the would-be attackers than the author thinks, which makes it very difficult to read this story with much enjoyment. Add on to that unintentionally funny moments (well, to me, at least), like Sebastian standing on his porch screaming, “TERAN!!!” as Teran finally escapes – which smacks too much of Stanley Kowalski to me – and it doesn’t really have a chance.
The romance between these two is based purely on sex instead of anything else, and the author expects you to believe that this is enough for a HEA for these two. Unless you’re a fan of forced heroine fantasies, I say give this one a pass.
| Readability | 7/10 – There’s headhopping and melodrama, but some occasional lyrical phrasing kept me hopeful for more. |
| Hero | 4/10 – There’s not enough for me to get a real good feel for him, and the alpha male tendencies – especially refusing to take no for an answer – aren’t well handled. |
| Heroine | 4/10 – At least she’s got a backbone. But that’s really all she has. |
| Entertainment value | 3/10 – The forced nature of the relationship is handled awkwardly, and some individual melodramatic moments had me giggling when I’m sure the author didn’t want me to. |
| World building | 3/10 – Individual details are good, but there is very little I could tell you about this world they inhabit. |
| TOTAL: | 21/50 |
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