This is a co-written work between Bridget Essex and Natalie Vivien. I have read several of Essex's work and a couple of Vivien's. Both are very talented authors and I look forward to each new work of theirs. 

 

However this piece while engaging and very imaginative was not as good as I expected it to be. I'm a huge fan of vampire literature and other peoples take on different characteristics they may or may not have. Add in lesbians and you have me sold!

 

The world itself is set up like an alternative United States where it's only been a few years since vampires have come out of hiding. In this world, they even have a woman president who is also a vampire. Props. Throughout the story, it shows the discrimination vampires face, which is similar to what homosexuals and persons of color have faced throughout all over the world. Just a lot hate mongering from people who don't want to understand someone whose different from them. Which is a very interesting take and imaginative in my opinion. I even like the main character and her to be love interest. It's very sweet and romantic.

 

But the elephant in the room that I could not ignore was the fact that the main character Courtney; is still in a relationship. I will interject and say that she doesn't cheat on her girlfriend, but it's clear she's attracted to Lare. (her to be love interest) Throughout the story, you come to find out that her girlfriend, Mia isn't very good to Courtney. In fact, she's downright sleazy if you ask me. She looks at other women is clearly sleeping around on her girlfriend. The kicker? They have only been together for FIVE months. Mia has been doing all this to someone who she has only been going out with for a short period of time. Which is frustrating that Courtney continues to put up with her for nearly sixty percent of this book. All while feeling a deep pull towards Lare. I could see it being hard if it was like five years, and the other woman was good to her.

 

But there's really no real reason why they should still be together in any sense of the word. There are multiple examples of times where Courtney should have left Mia. But she doesn't. It makes zero sense to me and after a while it just got old. Especially when she keeps repeating that she needs to leave Mia but she keeps avoiding it. There was really just no need of this back and forth over a five-month relationship. It just really dimensioned the book as a whole; that wasn't even super long, to begin with. 

 

This could have been much better and I wish it had been because I do adore both authors works. That aside I will continue to look forward to their work, but this one just didn't quite resonate with me as well as I had hoped for it too.

This was a 3.5 star book for me, and maybe I rated this one lower because I required more time to read the book as I was quite busy elsewhere, and didn't have my usual focus of one day's blur of reading. I kept feeling I was reading the same stuff over and over again when I resumed reading the story and had to go back and then forward to be sure I had not.

The book was well written burt the world building wasn't there. At no time does one really think they are in France. There are just long taxi rides where the MC holds out wads of cash. The main character was a bit somber and lost compared to the love interest, but I enjoyed the mystery of the main character's past she was so compelled to solve. Vida turns around completely from what she had been and loosens up in days to the charms of the French woman, beautiful, single, and part of the inheritance.

I take issue with practically everyone in the book speaking English. When one is surrounded by a foreign tongue the experience can be quite maddening as one is reduced to hand signals and grunted butchery of the foreign tongue. This trip to France seemed could have been a drive to Ohio.

What was so "forbidden" about Renée's attraction to Vida? Why did she run away to Paris only to be quickly found? Just for her part in the lying about the past and who was, in fact Josephine? I totally knew that the Aunt wasn't dead so I am proud of my quick little brain on that issue.