Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary
LGBTQ+ Category: MM Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses, Paranormal Romance Guild
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About The Book
When half-elf Gideon’s elf brother Braden runs afoul of a powerful old vampire, Gideon steps in to help him, suggesting it might be a good idea to recruit a dhampir. Reluctantly, because the only one he knows enjoys flirting with his lover, the witch Delilah, Braden agrees. Thus sexy Edan joins the team, and immediately sets his sights on Gideon.
Vampire Vicario lives in New Orleans, so the team heads down there, staying at a B&B owned by another witch, Maeve. She agrees to help them, and together they come up with a plan to destroy Vicario. A plan complicated by the fact Vicario’s tame sorcerer can see dhampir when they’re invisible, thus potentially making it impossible for Edan to take Vicario’s head.
To succeed in saving Braden will require all their combined skills. At the same time, Gideon is facing a personal battle: how to deal with his growing attraction to Edan. The sex is great, but there is more to a relationship than that, as he well knows. Can the two of them move beyond the physical — if they survive the conflict with Vicario — or will their differences tear them apart?
The Review
Gideon Llewellyn loves his quiet, isolated life. Settled into a cozy house in the woods outside a small coastal town in Maine, he can paint to his heart’s content and even has time to teach a neighbor’s little boy to draw. His being a half-elf is known to his community, and because of his gentle nature, inspires nothing more than mild curiosity.
Imagine his consternation when, one day, he arrives home to find a notorious vampire gangster sitting in his house, asking about the whereabouts of Gideon’s brother Braden.
Thus begins a reluctant adventure, taking Gideon across the country by magical means, where he meets along the way powerful witches and a dhampir named Edan, a half-vampire whose job it is to eliminate evil vampires.
There is a sort of innocent flatness to Kendrick’s writing, little effort at world-building in a scenario where paranormal creatures—including himself—have only relatively recently made their presence known. The plot is part road trip, part caper story, with a romance interwoven.
The story is charming, but I found a surprising lack of emotion—feelings talked about, but not somehow expressed in the writing. And, for all that these are magical creatures who talk about and use their powers, there is almost no sense of wonder in it. I know the author writes these books from his heart, but somehow that heart doesn’t make it onto the page.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
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