My Forbidden Desire
by Carolyn Jewel
Grand Central, 2009, ISBN #978-0-446-17824-2
Paranormal Romance
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Alexandrine Marit is a witch in mortal danger. An evil mage craves the powerful, mysterious talisman that supplies her magic, and the only person who can keep her safe is a dark and dangerous fiend called Xia. With his fierce animosity toward witches, he’s hardly the ideal bodyguard. yet as days turn into nights, she can’t deny the white-hot passion between them.
Xia hates witches. They enslave and mercilessly kill his kind. But he’s been ordered to protect Alexandrine, who, to his surprise, has a spirit he admires and a body he longs to possess. With the mage and his henchmen closing in, Alexandrine and her protector must trust the passion that can unite them… or risk losing everything to the enemies who can destroy them both.
Alexandrine, an orphan and child of the streets, has just learned that her dearly beloved brother is not only alive, but has reappeared in her life to protect her. He also knows about her magick and is determined to see her protected from an imminent threat. Strangely, he seems to think that the best way to do so is to stick her with a fiend, of all things.
Xia, recently freed from an eternity enslaved to a mage, hates all humans with magick. Which means he abhors Alexandrine, sight unseen. He doesn’t appreciate his orders to protect her, any more than he appreciates the way that she entices hims.
Blue Eyes [Xia] stared at her hand on his leather jacked like she’d just slimed him, and then he stared at her. She had time to register the fact that he was gorgeous. The way a tiger is gorgeous. Not one in the zoo, either, but a wild one. One who hadn’t eaten in a week and thought she looked like dinner in an easy-open package. He stood a head taller than her without even trying. “Fuck off, witch.”
Xia turns out to be one powerful and talented fiend and Alexandrine, who knows little of the paranormal world she finds she was born into, is fascinated and dismayed. She certainly doesn’t appreciate being the target of a mage who is sending enslaved fiends to kill her off, so she begrudgingly accepts Xia’s help. Xia struggles between his desire for her, his hate of her kind, and his unwillingness to trust, until she can prove to him just what he means to her.
The world the author has created is vibrant and rich and fascinating, a genuine struggle between good and evil, mage and fiend, slavery and free-will. It’s fast paced and the heat between Xia and Alexandrine is hawt. I thoroughly enjoyed Xia’s *fuck you* personality which he stayed true to throughout the story and Alexandrine’s independence and resourcefulness. They were a well matched couple with lots of chemistry.
One dynamic of the world is that fiends share a common consciousness with each other, and that means that what one feels, others can feel (or want) so there is a definite sense of ‘sharing’ that is allowed and even encouraged, even between a couple in love. While no third partner was actually introduced into their relationship, there is a distinct impression that the author will go there in the future, so if you are put off by that type of thing, be alert.
This is the 2nd book in a series, but reads well as a stand alone title.
Assessment: Highly Recommended. I did purchase this author’s entire backlist, including several historicals.
Can’t wait to hear what you think of Carolyn Jewel’s historicals. SCANDAL was probably my favorite book of 2009, and INDISCREET was in the top ten or twelve, for sure.
I’m very much looking forward to them and glad to know you recommend!
Sadly, it may be a little bit of time till I get to them. I still have A LOT of RWA giveaway books to read and review. And, with the new authors I’m discovering as a result, my TBR of purchased books is growing exponentially!
I may have to tally up my spend at the end and see if I can estimate what book purchases I’ve made as a direct result of the RWA giveaways. I’ll bet someone would be interested in that at the end, from a purely marketing standpoint. Heh.
You know, that WOULD be an interesting number to know. I am a firm believer that free books lead to increased sales, and it’s good to have examples to back that up. There are a few authors with Baen who say that, and several authors who have had a book featured as a Kindle freebie report increased sales afterwards.
OK! I’m going to keep a running total. Will keep it updated in right sidebar widget, where I show the new book I’m reading.
Just pulled my AMZN sales history to check to-date purchases. It was pretty easy to do, because I made sure to only take books from authors I’d never read before.
Happy reading!