Blood Eternal by Toni Kelly (The Blessed #1)
Paranormal Romance
February 3, 2014
Lyrical Press, Inc.
Reviewed by Helyce
After a horrific accident leaves her with a mountain of debt, Savannah Michaels answers a classified ad for a paid companion to someone in Italy. With little information, she makes this desperate choice thinking she has nothing to lose. Getting far away from the troubles of her life seems a good thing at this time and above all she hopes to be able to learn much about the Italian culture; most especially the food as her dream of opening her very own restaurant may become a reality with the payout for this companion job. She doesn’t know what to expect, but she certainly didn’t expect her companion to be anything like Luke Evans.
Luke’s latest scheme of hiring personal companions to rid the world of it’s most disgusting offenders seems to be working out. He maintains his immortality while at the same time getting a bit of revenge for the loss of his wife 200 years ago. Unfortunately, he’s not prepared for Savannah’s beauty or kindness and it’s not long before it becomes clear that she is much more than a mere human.
I admit, I was taken in by the thought of an innocent travel companion who answers an ad and perhaps finds the love of her life. I mean, it is a romance book, right? Clearly Savannah had suffered and survived and perhaps the money she would make would enable her to become the chef of her dreams in her own place and have a man by her side to boot! Right?
The set up of this story starts out strong but begins to sputter a bit as additional characters are introduced. The vampire society and hierarchy the author provides is not entirely new, but Luke Evans is a different kind of vampire–he’s a vampire with a conscience. Ms. Kelly’s vampires do not only need to feed to survive they need to kill to survive. Luke is uncomfortable with the killing part, so to aid his conscience, he runs the ads for a companion then has a PI do a background check and he chooses the applicant who is most unredeemable. He’s chosen Savannah exactly this way, but from the moment he meets her he knows something is not right.
Luke expects to go through the motions like he has with previous companions, but he finds himself attracted to Savannah and that goes against everything he is. Enter his PI Broderick. Broderick is a half breed, so not subject to the need to kill to survive. He has to feed, but also needs human food. Once Savannah is in Italy, he finds additional information and brings some interesting and important information to Luke after the fact and that begins to change everything where Savannah is concerned. At this point, there is a bit of mistaken identity going where Savannah is concerned, but the explanations were not satisfying.
While I would not classify Savannah into the TSTL category–I do question the fact that she answered an ad and flew so far from home just for the money. Yes, we know that she has a huge debt and this was a way to pay that off and start fresh; but even after she’s in Italy and Luke starts taking her out and introducing her to “his” world and she starts to question certain things internally we don’t see her stand up for herself too much. She is not in any way confused by her attraction to Luke, but I have to question the fact that even when she’s scared out of her mind she never thinks to leave? Really?
While the premise of this story did intrigue me, I stumbled a bit and found the writing sort of fragmented. The author tries to bring in some suspense but for me it fell flat. I felt like there was some sort of undercurrent of something going on throughout the story but didn’t feel it was fleshed out well. I also would have like more information about Savannah and how and more importantly why her background information was so misinterpreted that she fell into Broderick’s radar to be a candidate for Luke in the first place. The romance between Luke and Savannah felt slightly forced and lacked passion. I really do think this story had a lot of promise, but at the end I had too many questions.
Rating: D
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