Hello to all Bambi's Babes out there!
We have another new feature starting off here on the blog, Freebie Friday Reviews! This feature will occur the first Friday of every month, and will be a review for one of the many many books I have snagged for free off Amazon. How do you treat all those free books - do you hoard them or do you only pick one up as you want to read it? I tend to hoard them myself, hence the need for this feature! I would love to hear about what books you have one-clicked for free, and whether you loved or hated them!
We are starting off this feature with the first book in a series that I have been wanting to read forever!
by Kym Grosso
Series: Immortals of New Orleans #1
Publisher: Self-Pub
Pub. Date: Mar. 5, 2012
Freebie Date: May 15, 2015
Pages: 288
Format: eBook
Source: Amazon
My Rating:
Sultry Scale:
An erotic paranormal romance...
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?
Okay so there some vampy hoodoo voodoo ritualistic murders happening in Philly... but they are originating in New Orleans. I'm not quite sure how that works and it was never really explained. We just know that one minute the sexy-as-sin Kade, head vampire of New Orleans has come to Philly to help his friend Tristan (alpha werewolf) with this killing spree problem, and he basically crashes the investigation which is being carried out by Detective Sydney Willows. The next minute Kade and Sydney have returned to New Orleans to search out the bad vamp ringleader. There really was not much of an explanation as to how or why the death doll murders were being committed from a remote location many states away. That whole part was a little too glossed over for me.
As for Kade, he was tall dark and sexy... with a British accent. This helped me picture Stuart Reardon as I was reading, but we don't have much backstory on Kade. He has obviously been in New Orleans for a very long time... why does he have a British accent? This is more apparent if you listen to the audio - I was going back and forth between the ebook and the audio (gotta love Amazon whispersync). Anywho, Kade was one of those alpha vamps going all caveman and issuing edicts and throwing "MINE" around when it came to Sydney. At the same time, he was a business man and somewhat reasonable in that he usually ended up letting Sydney have her way.
Turning to Sydney - she was somewhat of an oversexed cop/detective. She did lots of casual sex and had sex on the brain for a good portion of the book. She was also extremely conflicted for most of the story, which started to wear on me. She loved Kade and they are bonded... but man can she really give up her nearly non-existent life? And what about her condo??? (Seriously?!?! It's Stuart Reardon and eternal life lady! Come on!) So of course she does what every TSTL heroine does, she runs and I roll my eyes and decide she is not good enough for Kade and he should drop her like a hot potato. (Pick me instead, my condo can rot, let me tell you.)
So this wasn't a bad read, I would have just liked more. Some world building would have been nice given that we have two different cities and all different kinds of supernatural characters. Especially when you are using New Orleans as a setting, and voodoo as your plot conflict, there is a lot of room there for detail and description that seemed lacking. The story was dialogue-driven a lot of the time as well, and it made me want more showing and less telling. The one area that was not lacking description was the sexytime! Those scenes were fairly well-written and steamy enough to garner a 4 Flame rating. I will continue to read the rest of the series as I am a sucker for these Nola-based books, and I hope to connect more with the story as I read.
View all my reviews
Immortals of New Orleans Series
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