My Viking Vampire: Lackluster Plot, Intriguing Characters

Bailey Ross’ world is crumbling around her. Her abusive ex, a human, is closing in on her again, and to make matters worse, a new enemy, a djinn, is stalking her. This supernatural being takes great pleasure in human pain, something Bailey has in excess thanks to her ex. If she’s caught by either, she’s as good as dead.

Backed into a corner and desperate to escape, she does something she swore wouldn’t ever be possible again –trusting a man. And he’s a vampire.

Protection via the sexy vampire Erick Thorson may prove to be a little more than she bargained for. Sparks fly between them and she finds herself agreeing to more than just protection. Though he has promised not to let anyone harm her, the small west Texas town is more than it seems and he may not be able to make good on his vow no matter how hard he tries.

Will Sanctuary be the home Bailey longs for or will she have to die to find out?

Sanctuary, Texas #1
Paranormal / Romance / Fantasy
400 Pages
KS Publishing
Publication Date:  August 25th, 2014
Get a FREE copy here!

Quick Reasons: interesting premise; random POV shift at the very end?!; definite sense of insta-love; interesting exploration of BDSM and boundaries; some heavy, mature themes; the audiobook of this was entertaining and fun; intriguing, well-rounded characters

special snowflake

insta-love

fishing for more

entertaining

Okay, penguins. I am, once again, TRYING to read more books via my EARS and not my eyes. Therefore, this review will also include my thoughts on the audiobook, because…YAY audible listening!

Can I just take a moment to rant a little bit? Because… this book? Had a sudden POV shift at the very end, and it drove me absolutely BONKERS. Don’t get me wrong, okay. Sudden POV shifts are the best surprises ever sometimes–but…at the end of a book? Randomly? With seemingly no true purpose behind it? That just bothers me. In this instance, Erick’s POV I could have done without honestly. The language was different, his thoughts were a lot more…crude? and I just couldn’t get into his character. I’m not sure what it was, exactly, but something about him bugged me, and being thrust so suddenly into his head for only a few short pages did nothing for me but make my thoughts on this book drop a bit. It felt like Krystal Shannan switched up the language–made it harsher, more graphic, more crude–to make it fit her idea of what men think about…and that didn’t work for me. At all.

Aside from that, I had fun listening to this audiobook! While the characters and plot felt a bit flat at times, there was plenty of action both in and out of the bedroom–though I admit I was much more into the action OUTSIDE of the bedroom than in it. Something about these characters just didn’t mesh well with me. Bailey, while scarred emotionally from an abusive past relationship, seemed TOO open–until it came to exploring BDSM. Erick, on the other hand… while his accent was sexy, I couldn’t get a real great sense of “him” from the read. This led to me not really being able to properly form a connection to the characters, or to truly believe them as a couple. Still, the read was entertaining, and Bailey had a few awesome moments of snark. A few of the other characters also stood out in my mind, and I’m curious to see if Krystal Shannan reintroduces them later in the series.

I was a bit disappointed in the “insta-love” aspect of this read, though I suppose I should have expected it. Also, Bailey seemed like some sort of drug for the supernaturals–they all wanted her?! Which made close to zero sense to me, because…I mean…why would they all be fighting over ONE girl? The fact that she later has a sort of “special snowflake” destiny just irked me further. Authors, I promise, the world’s not going to end if your character isn’t the most perfect of perfect of perrrrrfect! The fact that there was very little explanation to or exploration of this theme in the book… Well, needless to say I sort of shoved that information to the back of my head until writing this review. So, yeah–that happened, too.

Overall, though, this was an entertaining book to listen to. There were some sort of steamy moments, I loved that BDSM was explored in a safe and consenting manner, and the characters were intriguing enough that I’m interested in picking up the next book in the series (which is good, because it’s already on my Kindle shelves). I’d recommend this to lovers of steamy reads, paranormal/supernatural elements, and a few heavy-handed subjects. This was a walk on the supernatural side, penguins; maybe you should see what the fuss is about!