Official Book Summary:
A warrior with a scarred heart who doesn’t know how to love. And the woman who must teach him how before it’s too late…
The son of the evil AllFather, Xairn is filled with conflicting emotions. On one hand, he has finally gained his freedom and cut the ties that bound him to his race and the sadistic male who is his father. But doing so has unleashed feelings in him Xairn would rather keep buried. Desires that he prayed would never manifest now rage through him and they are centered on one woman alone…
Lauren Jakes is the long lost cousin Liv and Sophie never knew they had. Abducted by the Scourge, she formed a connection with Xairn more meaningful than any other in his life. But though Lauren thinks she knows him, there is more to the huge Scourge warrior than she comprehends. A nightmare childhood and a cruel father have scarred Xairn’s heart almost past the point of healing. But that is nothing to the secret inside him—the forbidden desires coded into his very DNA itself, which urge him to commit unspeakable acts in order to sate his newly awakened hunger.
Now a conflict is brewing—both in Xairn’s soul, and aboard the Fathership where the twisted AllFather has hatched a new, malicious plot to bring his estranged son home. Can Xairn resist the brutal lust growing within him? Can he fight against his very nature which urges him to dominate and control any female he mates? Can Lauren heal his heart before the AllFather’s trap closes on both of them?
And can she teach him how to love before it’s too late?
I have been anticipating this story from the moment Lauren was introduced into this series. I can admit I was super excited mainly because Lauren is half African-American. I was able to identify more with her. I will start this review by saying if you are unfamiliar with the Brides of the Kindred series go back to the beginning and start with Claimed. You, speaking to the interested readers, will be lost if you have not read at least the first or second book in this series. Some books can be read as stand-alones, but this is not one of them. For maximum appreciation of the characters, their struggles and the climax of this book it’d be best to have some familiarity with the characters.
The best thing about this book is the price. With the increase in e-book piracy Evangeline Anderson has tried her best to make it unnecessary for people to pirate her material. You can’t beat $2.99. And with that being said on with the review.
The length of this book is a hard core fan’s wet dream. Long, strong and full of the delicious bits that categorize a book as re-readable. What are the juicy bits? SEX. ACTION. MURDER. CONFLICT.FRICTION.PRESSURE.DREAD. It’s all in here. One thing that Evangeline Anderson is good at is breaking up predictability. After reading the book summary, some may be under the impression that the book is about Xairn and Lauren exclusively. It’s not just about Lauren and Xairn finding a way for her to get home to Earth and for them to be together. It’s so much more than that. Yes, the end game is for Lauren to be reunited with her family on Earth and for Xairn to be free of his enemy of the galaxy evil father, but there is so much that happens in between. If you are familiar with this series then you will appreciate the reappearance of characters from the previous books in the series. If you wanted updates on the lives of these characters, as I sure did, they have their moments.
Out of all of the books in the series, this one and Claimed are a tie for my favorites. I went into reading this book with the idea that this was a hopeless love affair. Xairn’s father, the Scourge AllFather, was pure evil and he had deep-seated issues thinking that he was hard-wired the same way. Xairn was my favorite character in the entire series. The struggle outside of him had nothing on the struggle going on inside of him. There was such pressure and fear that he would turn out to be like his father that it made him such a perfect mate for Lauren.
As far as Xairn being Scourge (a despised and reviled race), I give Evangeline Anderson major kudos for incorporating BDSM into the Scourge culture. I thought how the Scourge distorted the idea of Alpha males and dominate personalities into this cruel, misshapen society was a great angle to work. And because Xairn had never acted on his the BDSM lifestyle that is so much a part of his race I could not wait to see how he’d unleash it on Lauren.
The one thing I do have to mention is that the number of “complete” sexual encounters between Xairn and Lauren is not plentiful. There’s a lot of sexual suffering and abstinence going on between the two before they finally get down to the get down. In my opinion this was not a bad thing, but it was more than a little frustrating. I do understand the why of it, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. When they finally do handle it let me tell you sparks are flying off the page. Those two are hot as Hell. Xairn is Alpha to the T and Lauren is submissive enough to make things interesting.
I for one enjoyed this book and after contacting her via email I’ve discovered the series will continue. So I will stick around for the next in the series.
