got suckered in with the book synopsis. didn't need to read a full chapter about a magic induced orgasm. i can't believe a main character can be so naive. ( )

Most folks know that I'm a huge fan of Tracy Deebs. Her adult books are under her pen name, Tessa Adams. She has a way of bringing you full force into her books, and Soulbound is no different.

Amazing is about all I can say. Xandra is such a great character. She doesn't give in to her mother's craziness. And believe me, her mother comes up with some doozies to try to bring Xandra's power out. Xandra is opinionated and quite the smart ass. In other words, I FREAKING LOVE HER. She does everything she can to keep herself, and her life, away from magic. Declan is pretty amazing. He's HAWT!!!! That fits my main criteria. :P He may seem like a jerk, but he really does care. He just has really odd ways of showing it. I think a lot of it is he doesn't want to get hurt by anyone.

The plot is pretty fast paced. Dead bodies are stacking up pretty quickly. Xandra can't figure out what she has to do with these murders, and it seems she has magic that is going crazy. There are so many twists, and I was very happy with the outcome. I couldn't put it down, and ended up reading until 3 AM to finish it.

The 2nd book come out in December, according to goodreads. I can't help but grumble about how far away that is. ( )

I had some problems with the overall story arc, characters and writing, but in the end I can't deny I was sucked in.

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: Latent witch has grown used to her lot but comes into her power and struggles to understand her gifts.

Opening Sentence: I was born on a dark night, under a Dark Moon in a sky turned bloodred with power and prophecy.

The Review:

This story revolves around Xandra Morgan who is the 7th daughter to the 7th daughter in a Royal line of witches. She is foretold and prophesied to have great magic but in the end Xandra has got nothing. No magic at all and she couldn’t pull a rabbit out of her hat if she had to. This premise, I felt had many possibilities for story lines including the struggle Xandra’s family has with her inability to be a witch.

The interplay in the early portion of the book between Xandra and her mother in particular really pushed the story along and helped to flesh out Xandra’s motivation and often her guilt about her family. As always, the interchange between mother and daughter fascinates me in part because of the unique and ever changing relationship I have with my own mother. In this portion of the storytelling, Ms. Adams nails the dialogue and angst perfectly.

However, the time it took to progress to other portions of the story was a bit of a buzz kill for me. I wanted to see those relationships develop but also have the story move along faster. We seem to get bogged down a bit in a juvenile mind set by Xandra which was a bit strange. This is a 27 year old woman with a business that sometimes felt like a teenage instead. She doesn’t think to ask the important questions of loved ones or the hero and demand answers. This doesn’t compute with that type of personality but maybe that is my biases coming through.

Now our hero, Declan Chumomisto was a hard character to crack. I was unsure nearly the whole way through the book whether, in fact, he was an anti-hero or not. Maybe that is what Ms. Adams was going for but the relationship with Xandra can only be described as “off”. There is just something not right but the reader does discover later why this does feel this way, however, I feel it could have been handled in a different manner and still had the same impact.

The side characters we are introduced to in this book often feel like an afterthought, which is a true shame. A couple of them have staring roles later in the book, but aren’t given the character development that I would have preferred to see earlier on.

On a larger front, I am not sure about this book’s genre placement. Seems to me that this book would have fit more squarely in Young Adult fiction. Eighty-five percent of the book was squarely written in a Young Adult fiction format and only fifteen percent of the book is Adult content. Maybe Ms. Adams was not sure which readers to write for, but I felt the distinct difference in writing and content.

Finally, this series has promise and I would definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a different spin on paranormal or shifter romances. My hope is that book 2, Flamebound, will take all the strides forward that Soulbound has going for it and expand on those and ditch some of the extraneous noise that were distractions. We shall have to wait and see.

Notable Scene:

“Declan, it’s been almost nine years since we’ve seen each other. Frankly, the fact that you know where I live smacks of stalkerdom.”

“Eight years.”

“What?”

“It’s been eight years, five months and three weeks since I last saw you. Not nine years. And why should it upset you if I know where you live? Have I ever bothered you?”

“You’re bothering me now.”

He makes the turn into Guadalupe smoothly. “No, I’m taking care of you. I thought the difference between the two was obvious.”

FTC Advisory: Signet/Penguin provided me with a copy of Soulbound. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Only read this book if you have a high tolerance for:

reading the phrase "that poor woman/girl" at least a hundred times.

cookie cutter "dominant males" who express their dominance through fighting over the heroine in a way that does nothing for her, the situation, the plot, the characters, or anything else, and also smile "sardonically" a lot in inappropriate situations.

a "heroine" who can't even stand up for herself enough to tell her best friend that she needs to stay in for the night because she needs more than 3 hours of sleep before going to work in the morning.

That is all. ( )