A few hours ago, Sherry
Carne would have sworn that vampires didn’t exist. That’s before rogue
immortals rampage through her store, leaving bloody chaos (literally) in
their wake. The kicker comes when Sherry learns that one of the vamps
on the bad guys’ trail may be her life mate. Her head says it’s
impossible. The rest of her takes one look at Basileios Argeneau and has
much more interesting ideas.Whatever Basil expected in a life mate, funny, outspoken Sherry isn’t it. But mind-blowing chemistry and instinct don’t lie. They tell him something else, too—that Sherry’s connection to the immortal world goes deeper than she knows. And that she’s in the kind of danger only Basil can save her from—if she’ll just trust him, now and forever . . .
Comment: This is the 21st installment in the life long Argeneau series by author Lynsay Sands, about a vampire family and all the connected characters. This has been quite successful for the first book included in the series was published in 2003 (with a heavier comedy tone) and after sixteen years, it's still on going even if some installments aren't as funny or "light" as some of the initial ones were.
In this story we meet Basileios Argeneau, one of Lucien's brothers from Atlantis, someone who has been pretty low profile but now got center stage.
His heroine is Sherry, a woman that got into the middle of things after villain Leo ans his sons entered her store, where they thought they saw Stephanie (a secondary character we met a few books ago) go in there.
While trying to understand Stephanie's weird behavior, Sherry talks to her and sees Leo behave in an even more weird way. Somehow Stephanie makes a go at solving their situation and also finds the time to realize Sherry could be a potential life mate to Basileios because of their similar "energy".
As one can imagine, adventure and confusion follows...
After so many books, it's a wonder the author can still keep up with the expectations of those who read this series, namely because of the fascinating take on the vampire notion, even if that isn't exactly the description the author likes to use or that the characters are seen as using. I think the overall concept of how these different types of people, whose features often are compared and alike those of the vampires often found in fantastic literature, is quite amazing and that explain several things very well. I also like how the author decided to use the "family" concept here, which means all characters are somehow connected and that makes things more interesting, especially if we need to have recurrent characters not being too weirdly participating in other couple's main stories.
This book has all the above and I must say it got to a point that it is necessary to look at the family tree the author has on her website because after so many books and couples, everything starts to be very confusing...
What I probably liked the best about this book is how it focused on the central plot of looking for and trying to apprehend the villain Leo. For that, the romance took a little step back and we were able to still see characters interact but it wasn't distracting from the main issue. It also provided interesting insights regarding the heroine, the "new" character in this.
Often these books focus on one of the Argeneau family members or other immortals in their connection network and a new person, the usually new life mate that comes on scene to form the romantic bond. In this case Sherry is the mortal woman who is discovered to be the possible life mate of Basileios.
Basileios is certainly an interesting character and we get to understand him a bit but he has never been crucial for the other stories so I must say I wasn't that impressed by his personality of his role as protagonist.
Sherry, on the other hand, is more fascinating because of her past, of who she really is in terms of allowing the reader to consider a new situation regarding how mortals and immortals are connected.
The relationship between them was more of the same with the change that they both met knowing others already assumed they could be life mates. It looked like as if they were expected to be on a blind date and figure out if they "matched". Of course they did, which we already knew, so their relationship developed in an interesting cautious way and that was different enough for me to appreciate it.
At least until intimacy came to happen and as any reader knows, the sex between life mates can be too consuming. I think bringing that into the equation is always a must but to be honest it just made the small steps they took before lose all impact.
After so many books it can be a little too repetitive how the romance is portrayed and I miss the expectation of having a different type of romance development. Still, this had a few funny situations, some advancement and I was entertained enough for certain.
Grade: 7/10
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