Kidnapped! When Jeanne Louise Argeneau left work, she never thought she'd end up tied down by a good-looking mortal. More attracted than annoyed, she quickly realizes there is more to her abductor than meets the eye.
One desperate act leads to . . .
Love? Paul Jones has need of a vampire, and only Jeanne Louise will do. He just has to convince this beauty of a Vamp to help him . . . never imagining that he would fall in love. But with the immortal world's answer to law enforcement hunting them, their time together is running out . . . and Paul and Jeanne Louise will need to risk everything to spend an eternity together.
Comment: This is installment #17 in the Argeneau series by author Lynsay Sands. I wasn't very pleased with the previous story but since I have many books left in the series to read, I kept on with it. This books features Jeanne Louise, a character very familiar to faithful readers (as opposed to some that seem to come out of nowhere).
In this story Jeanne Louise is kidnapped by Paul, a coworker in her lab of Argeneau Enterprises. Paul is a desperate man because his young child is dying and he, being aware of immortals like Jeanne Louise, only wants someone to save her. He picks Jeanne Louise and takes her to his house but of course things don't go as easily as he thought. Despite that, Jeanne Louise can't read him and believes he can be her lifemate.
Reading Olivia, his daughter, does provide a lot of information but before anything is done, Jeanne Louise feels Paul should start to trust her, to better accept the immortal concept as well as the lifemate one. The problem is that her family is looking for Jeanne Louise and if they are found before she can gets Paul's trust, he might be convicted for having kidnapped her...
Comparing this book to the previous, I did like this one a lot more. Like I said in my comments of the previous book, there is a lot I forgot, but thankfully, the stories can be quite similar which allows forgotten details to be remembered somehow.
Regarding this one, it was especially good to have it featuring Jeanne Louise, a character I remember from the early books of the series. I think the more along we go, the more need exists for new characters but that just doesn't create such an impact as the characters readers were used to see as recurrent would do.
I liked this installment because it reminded me of the more traditional approach to these stories, where it was necessary to create a believable situation for the protagonists to interact despite the immortal's secrets. As I've also noticed since a few books ago, the author has also inserted a little serious tone to her stories and many times we must go through certain complicated issues or situations. On one hand, this is great because we can understand the characters more (like Paul's believable need to save his daughter), but on the other, it does detract from the original ai of these stories, more focused on comedy and fun circumstances.
As far as the attraction between Paul and Jeanne Louise goes, I didn't think it was that amazingly done. We know and Jeanne Louise knows he is likely to be a lifemate but it's difficult to avoid the knowledge the immortal character will think that or assume a relationship might happen. From this notion to accepting and influencing it (whether because they want to spend time knowing the other first or allowing room for feelings to develop) is a small step and to me that does remove some of the beauty of the romance.
If one element knows the other might be it, then there's a very clear intention of letting something happen from there and although the road might be more or less complicated, just that awareness always removes the fun from it.
One might say that it has always been so but in the early books, even having that knowledge, some characters wouldn't seem to affect the other's decision nor would they act as desperate. I feel the more recent the books, the more this need to enhance the fact the immortal is looking for a HEA and that doesn't feel as spontaneous or as romantically achieved.
These details aside, of course everything ends well, like I said, there ar some issues to overcome, some were better done but in the end, things were solved rather easily despite all the conversation about why it wouldn't and the realistic reasons why immortals and mortals might not always find a happy ending.
I also feel a little bit sad I wasn't as captivated by Jeanne Louise and Paul as I was with the protagonists of the early books. I do think there has been a change in style and tone int he stories. Still, it was nice to read this one and I hope the next one will be cute too.
Grade: 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment