Story Rating: 3.5 stars
Audio Rating: 4.5 stars
Narrator: Christopher Rourke
Length: 5 hours, 23 minutes
Audiobook Buy Links: Amazon/Audible | iBooks
Book Buy Links: Amazon | iBooks
Ezra has been a vampire for hundreds of years after being turned at the age of 23. He was turned without his consent and he mostly has been going through the motions all of these years. He’s supposed to take over leadership of the council from his vampire parents, but in order to do that, he needs to take a mate. Ezra has never been interested in taking a mate either, but with mounting pressure on him, he knows he has little choice.
Declan lives a quiet life after being raised in the foster care system. When he meets Ezra at a club, both men know the connection between them is different and more than they have ever experienced before. Ezra finally realizes what he has been missing without a mate and, for a brief time, life is blissful.
But not everyone is happy for them and rogue vampires threaten to put an end to their happiness for good. Ezra has to protect his mate, his family, and his territory, and even if he can save Declan, the men will have to rebuild the ease of their bond and relationship to enjoy the forever they thought they would have together.
Ezra and Declan hit the notes for kinky, broody, soul mate vampires. Ezra has been around for hundreds of years, and the vampires he calls his parents are the vampires that turned him after a one-time sexual encounter. Which makes the dynamic such that no matter how old Ezra gets, he will forever be the child. He’s apathetic about most things, especially finding a mate and taking over leadership; that is, until he meets Declan.
The chemistry between Ezra and Declan is intense from the start and they spend a lot of time working out the heat between them. An intense bond is created between them and the need to be together is all rough and claiming and they worked it out together through many intimate scenes in the book.
The story then moves to the politics surrounding the vampire community and the presence of rogue vampires and this area wasn’t developed enough for me. It seemed like all of a sudden the story moved to one where not everyone is happy about Ezra’s family being the ones with the power, but it was not explained well to follow all that was going on. It’s mentioned that Ezra’s family kept him in the dark on a lot of things and I felt the same. It then made the motivations of some of the characters not fully clear and this area of the story didn’t work nearly as well as the connection between Ezra and Declan.
Ezra and Declan’s story comes to a conclusion and it says that it is the end “for now.” There could be other stories to tell for other characters and, since that was the highlight of the book for me, I would check out anything additional available in this world.
Christopher Rourke is a new narrator to me and it’s so great to find another narrator to be excited about. He added so much to the story and I really enjoyed his tone throughout the entire audio. Ezra has an Old English style accent that is often associated with vampires, it’s mentioned he had lived in England, and it really set off his broody and somber personality. Declan has a completely different dialect, which worked well for him and the story, although I can’t say for certain I knew exactly where the story was currently taking place. This book is definitely a good choice in audio and I will certainly be looking at Rourke’s other narrations.
