When Nicole Phillips agreed to hire a housekeeper, she pictured someone a little frumpy and almost certainly female. Instead, she gets gorgeous, unmistakably male Jake Colson. The man is proving indispensable in the kitchen—and everywhere else. Except Jake might not be a mortal man at all.
. . . and every night
Who wouldn't want to be a tall, dark, powerful vampire? Jake, for one. He's barely had time to adjust to his new state before he's roped into a family favor. Still, secretly playing bodyguard to sweet, sexy Nicole is turning out to be the wildest ride of his life. First he'll put a stop to whoever's targeting her. Then he'll prove that this kind of love, and luck, happens only once in an eternity.
Comment: This is the 19th installment in the Argeneau series and such a long lived series has stories that one can enjoy or read with more eagerness and others that aren't as interesting.
This one, for me, is a little bit in the middle. I didn't dislike the story but it wasn't one I'd wish to re-read in the future either.
In this book we have the story of Nicole Phillips, a new character to the series and Jake Colson, the name used by Stephano Notte after his transformation. Apparently this happened in a scene somewhere in a past book - that is why I didn't remember it!
Jake didn't want to be an immortal and he has had this feeling since that happened but he is still somehow led by Marguerite, the series matchmaker and his sort of aunt, to protect Nicole because she has had a lot of bad luck situations lately and Marguerite thinks Nicole's ex husband is behind the accidents.
Of course, eventually Jake realizes Nicole is his life mate and that changes his attitude towards the while immortal life, leading him to also change his behavior among his family, who has always wanted him to be happy. But the problems continue and they even escalate which means something must be done.
This read as a sort of classic romance/adventure: the main couple discover their attraction and bond while trying to solve a complicated situation with the help of some meddling secondary characters.
Jake and Nicole meet and very quickly become mates. I mean, for fans of the series, this being mates situation has some "rules" and it's not as sexual as it sounds (despite having that too, of course) and things are always quite fair. However, the way the couple meets and bonds and accepts what's happening feels very rushed. There are some elements to simplify this quickness (pheromones exchanged by the two people, some paranormal feel between them, the circumstances of why they are meeting one another, the fact one element of the couple knows more about the situation that the other, etc) but for me it always feels as if it could happen differently.
I mean, Jake is a fascinating character, he has an attitude towards the whole immortal scene quite different from the usual and this was probably what made me like the story, he was different.
I liked how Jake struggled with his own self, with what he thought about what he was doing, why he was like this...very interesting dilemmas but it was a little sad he changed his POV so quickly because of the life mate.
Nicole was a very bland character. Nothing about her made me like her in any specific way, she was just there.
The plot has some interesting moments and there's even a little twist closer to the end regarding the attacks on Nicole. It was good that the author has included some new elements to sort of move things a bit. But the overall read wasn't as amazing. Nicole was too static for me to cheer for her as a love interest for Jake.
Also, before it was fun and cute to see how unaware characters would move around the immortals or how they acted in situations they couldn't really understand. Now, after so many stories, it just feels boring and repetitive and sometimes even silly.
If some of the tone and details of this world have evolved into more serious things, then everything should too. That is, if this isn't primarily a comedy series anymore, than more details need to be updated within the premises, otherwise some things just won't matter anyway.
Grade: 7/10
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