Format: ebook
Published: May 1st, 2010
Age: Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: 1/5 Stars
I open every book with hope – when I start a book, I want to like it. I want to feel engaged with the characters and the story and end up feeling invested in what’s happening. For the most part, too, I’m happy to handwave a few minor things, especially in historical romance. I’m not an expert in history, and I tend to think (hope?) that any author dealing with ‘history’ has done their research. But even if I know something isn’t technically correct, if the writing is strong enough, I can overlook it.
There were so many issues with this one I found myself growing more and more frustrated and annoyed, and unfortunately flat characters and a ropey plot made it difficult to overlook these.
Taylor is fired from her academic role because of her insistence that the 5th Century poet Inigo Domhnall existed. Once she’s out of a job, she hears the poet’s words in a death metal song, she’s delighted to hear the band are about to play locally. Taylor is able to pay for tickets – despite them apparently being incredibly popular and tickets sold out, and despite the fact she’s just lost her job – meets lead singer Brody, kisses him and is transported back in time. She then kisses Veris, Brody’s lover, and the same thing happens. Taylor finds herself tangled up with the vampires, but once she is, she seems to lose some interest in the poet aspect.
Just as I’m not an expert on history, I’m not one on academia, but I did find myself really questioning how Taylor found herself in this situation. I was expecting there to be some rare scrap of paper with the poet’s words on it, or something for her to pin her academic career on, but it turns out she’s basing her research and work on stories her dad’s friend told her as a kid. Stories that also contained the legendary King Arthur. Who funded her research? Who agreed to it? There’s no evidence, not even mentions by other sources, yet she’s been able to have a job off the back of folklore?
The thing is, there are so many of these holes. The book is messy. Brody is ‘Celtic’, but there’s never any sense of what this exactly means. Possibly Irish, but then he was part of Arthur’s army or his dad was or something, and King Arthur has his roots in Welsh mythology, and considering ‘Celtic’ is such a vast, broad term, the way these characters throw it about it doesn’t really mean much. It seriously made me consider the question of whether or not ‘Celtic’ peoples would refer to them as such, instead of by a more…family or group (tribe, clan) name. Everything to do with the history of the two vampires – which should, honestly, be fascinating – is so vague, it makes it hard to take it seriously.
This is erotica, so I feel it’s also worth mentioning after the first two sex scenes, I lost interest. They all start the exact same way, they all don’t really go anywhere, and the characters weren’t written well enough for me to really enjoy the “Alpha male” type. The same phrases are used for every sex scene – everything is constantly pulsing. And despite this being a situation where all three are lovers and the two vampires have been together for a long, long time, their actual relationship is never really seen, except for one kiss which turns Taylor on. It just felt a bit strange that we never actually got to see Brody’s and Veris’ relationship.
I found this book to be weak, messy and rushed, which is a shame because I was really looking forward to a vampire time travel series, but I won’t be continuing with this one.
Reading Challenge
2025 TV Shows Reading Challenge
Prompt: This Is Us – A book with different timelines
Progress: 9/12
Unwrapping Words 