Vampires are born, not made. Can one night change everything? At a nightclub called Temptations, Kaden, the Saak’da or future ruler of a race living on Earth secretly for generations, is trying to stop a massacre from happening. He’s had a tip that a small disgruntled faction of his people plan an attack that night that will result in a great loss of human life. Kaden is focused, disciplined, and determined to protect the humans who are ignorant to his people’s presence. But when he prevents a tragic accident from happening, one that would have been fatal to the little bus-boy, Matty, he sets a powerful force into motion. Kaden broke the rules about not interfering in human lives because one touch from Matty convinced him that Matty was his fated blood-angel, and that the bond between them would last for the rest of his very long life.
Matty can’t believe his good fortune when a sex-god like Kaden D’Marco wants to take him home. Matty is just a nobody, abandoned and abused as a child, bullied and picked on by his boss at the club. He washes dirty glasses for a living, and he’s never attracted the attention of a man like Kaden.
Kaden has waited a long time for his fated one, but can a man who feeds on human blood find happiness with someone who faints at the sight of it? Can he convince this scared young man to trade a taste of his blood for a love that will last a thousand years and bring him happiness and gifts that he can’t even imagine?
Title: Temptation (Guardians of the Five Rubies #1)
Author/s: Shannon West, Victoria Sue
Publisher: Dark Hollows Press
Publication Date: November 2015
ISBN: 978-1-944054-20-5
Buy it from Dark Hollows Press
Maria's Rating: ★★
Author/s: Shannon West, Victoria Sue
Publisher: Dark Hollows Press
Publication Date: November 2015
ISBN: 978-1-944054-20-5
Buy it from Dark Hollows Press
Maria's Rating: ★★
This book was a bit of struggle for me. My biggest problem was actually the same as Kaden's dilemma – trying to explain the whole ruask'aa mating to Matty without freaking the human out.
I'm not a huge fan of insta-love, but this book made me realize just how awkward it is when one of the involve parties does acknowledge that yes, this whole thing is ridiculous and can you step away a little from my personal space, please? Of course, it must be said that shifters/mating stories usually involve this deal, which I’m actually okay with, because it can be done. I've read stories that can make you forget that fated mates have barely known each other for a month (hell, a week) but are already professing their undying love for each other, and it doesn't sound the least bit ridiculous. Unfortunately, while Temptation explicitly acknowledges this mating 'problem', it doesn't do anything further than… well, acknowledging that.
The relationship between Kaden and Matty is strained, at best. Their attraction for each other is not up for argument; it's obvious from the very beginning that they want each other. It's when they try to communicate that we see the problem – they can't. Despite being as old as he is (507 years old yay), Kaden fumbles very badly with his words. He is completely incapable of explaining his history and the mating ritual to Matty, and he doesn't get any better even as they move forward. He recognizes this problem, which I actually give him credit for, but other than that he is unable to do anything else but watch hopelessly as the love of his life flees from him in confusion. He doesn’t even explain his feeding to Matty, which is obviously the very basic of mating, since it can kill him. And he certainly doesn’t make things any better by thinking with his dick. Kind of makes me wonder what the future holds for his people, since he’s the guardian and all.
If there’s anything I actually like about Kaden, it’s that he’s aware he’s absolute shit at explaining his life, and he doesn’t pressure Matty into giving into him. Which would have actually endeared him to me, except he chooses instead to make sad puppy faces in hopes that Matty will understand what the fuck he’s on about (e.g. he doesn’t want Matty to go because it’s dangerous, but he doesn’t explain just how dangerous it can be, so Matty is left to his imagination). Oh man. Unlike him, Matty can’t read minds, so maybe he could have moved things along and said what he wanted to say?
I’m not sure how I feel about Matty. I understood his confusion and I found his pink bikini briefs hilarious (because c’mon, it was gold). While I like his independence, I find him a bit too flighty and too impulsive, especially as the story moves forward. He can’t make up his mind about how he feels or what he wants to do, but then again I guess that has a lot to do with Kaden being a confusing fuck himself. The addition of his sister toward the end is silly at best; it struck me as a sorry excuse to get him away from Kaden and get him busy. I wish they’d just established a friend nearby he could hang out with, while keeping the sob backstory about being abandoned.
And don’t even get me started on the number of things that they tried to add to this book. We saw (1) fated mates; (2) dying father who has something important for his heir; (3) rebellion against status quo; (4) vampires/aliens; (5) mpreg (which didn’t actually happen, but was mentioned; (6) estranged brothers; (7) good twin bad twin; (8) guardianship of something super important!!; (9) assassins; and (10) others, which include but are not limited to mind reading, teleportation, dumb attempt at jumping from one building to another, etc.
I’ve finished the book and I'm still not sure what it's about. For one, it doesn’t seem like Davv’id is the villain that he was initially made to be; I doubt he will harm Matty given his experience with his own ruask’aa. Amariska hasn’t shown herself yet, but she wasn’t emphasized enough to hold my attention; I don’t really care about what happens to her. The rubies sound like they're a big deal, but I still fail to grasp just how important they are, because they're simply mentioned like they're not that important. I wish there had been further elaboration on what these rubies can do.
I haven’t read a lot of Victoria Sue to really identify her writing, but I can definitely say I didn’t see much Shannon West in this one. I’ve seen these authors work together so well in Supremacy of Wolves, so this collaboration is a huge disappointment. Especially when they're able to write something as powerful as the following:
When he'd touched him, he'd known. His body had known. His blood had known. Five hundred years and he had given up searching for the one that legend said would complete him, love him, make him whole.
Overall, I didn’t hate the book, not when Shannon West and Victoria Sue can string very powerful words together beautifully. Unfortunately, that's not enough to make this book a very compelling read, so I'm giving it two stars.
I'm not a huge fan of insta-love, but this book made me realize just how awkward it is when one of the involve parties does acknowledge that yes, this whole thing is ridiculous and can you step away a little from my personal space, please? Of course, it must be said that shifters/mating stories usually involve this deal, which I’m actually okay with, because it can be done. I've read stories that can make you forget that fated mates have barely known each other for a month (hell, a week) but are already professing their undying love for each other, and it doesn't sound the least bit ridiculous. Unfortunately, while Temptation explicitly acknowledges this mating 'problem', it doesn't do anything further than… well, acknowledging that.
The relationship between Kaden and Matty is strained, at best. Their attraction for each other is not up for argument; it's obvious from the very beginning that they want each other. It's when they try to communicate that we see the problem – they can't. Despite being as old as he is (507 years old yay), Kaden fumbles very badly with his words. He is completely incapable of explaining his history and the mating ritual to Matty, and he doesn't get any better even as they move forward. He recognizes this problem, which I actually give him credit for, but other than that he is unable to do anything else but watch hopelessly as the love of his life flees from him in confusion. He doesn’t even explain his feeding to Matty, which is obviously the very basic of mating, since it can kill him. And he certainly doesn’t make things any better by thinking with his dick. Kind of makes me wonder what the future holds for his people, since he’s the guardian and all.
If there’s anything I actually like about Kaden, it’s that he’s aware he’s absolute shit at explaining his life, and he doesn’t pressure Matty into giving into him. Which would have actually endeared him to me, except he chooses instead to make sad puppy faces in hopes that Matty will understand what the fuck he’s on about (e.g. he doesn’t want Matty to go because it’s dangerous, but he doesn’t explain just how dangerous it can be, so Matty is left to his imagination). Oh man. Unlike him, Matty can’t read minds, so maybe he could have moved things along and said what he wanted to say?
I’m not sure how I feel about Matty. I understood his confusion and I found his pink bikini briefs hilarious (because c’mon, it was gold). While I like his independence, I find him a bit too flighty and too impulsive, especially as the story moves forward. He can’t make up his mind about how he feels or what he wants to do, but then again I guess that has a lot to do with Kaden being a confusing fuck himself. The addition of his sister toward the end is silly at best; it struck me as a sorry excuse to get him away from Kaden and get him busy. I wish they’d just established a friend nearby he could hang out with, while keeping the sob backstory about being abandoned.
And don’t even get me started on the number of things that they tried to add to this book. We saw (1) fated mates; (2) dying father who has something important for his heir; (3) rebellion against status quo; (4) vampires/aliens; (5) mpreg (which didn’t actually happen, but was mentioned; (6) estranged brothers; (7) good twin bad twin; (8) guardianship of something super important!!; (9) assassins; and (10) others, which include but are not limited to mind reading, teleportation, dumb attempt at jumping from one building to another, etc.
I’ve finished the book and I'm still not sure what it's about. For one, it doesn’t seem like Davv’id is the villain that he was initially made to be; I doubt he will harm Matty given his experience with his own ruask’aa. Amariska hasn’t shown herself yet, but she wasn’t emphasized enough to hold my attention; I don’t really care about what happens to her. The rubies sound like they're a big deal, but I still fail to grasp just how important they are, because they're simply mentioned like they're not that important. I wish there had been further elaboration on what these rubies can do.
I haven’t read a lot of Victoria Sue to really identify her writing, but I can definitely say I didn’t see much Shannon West in this one. I’ve seen these authors work together so well in Supremacy of Wolves, so this collaboration is a huge disappointment. Especially when they're able to write something as powerful as the following:
When he'd touched him, he'd known. His body had known. His blood had known. Five hundred years and he had given up searching for the one that legend said would complete him, love him, make him whole.
Overall, I didn’t hate the book, not when Shannon West and Victoria Sue can string very powerful words together beautifully. Unfortunately, that's not enough to make this book a very compelling read, so I'm giving it two stars.
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