Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Midnight Captive by Arial Burnz

Title:  Midnight Captive
Series:  Bonded by Blood Vampire Chronicles #2
Author:  Arial Burnz
Published:  Feb 12/13 by Mystical Press
Length:  344pgs
Format:   ecopy
Genre:  paranormal romance
Shelf:  review
Rating:  ★★★

Synopsis from Goodreads:

CAILIN MAC DOUGAL has lived a dangerous life being the adopted daughter of vampire Broderick “Rick” MacDougal, so she had no choice but to learn to fight in order to protect herself. However, such behavior is hardly desirable in a dutiful wife who’s supposed to embroider and run a household. This aggressive side of her behavior should be easy enough to hide from her betrothed…shouldn’t it?

After being away at fencing school for seven years, JAMES KNIGHTLY has returned as a master swordsman, ready to captain his own ship and finally wed his childhood sweetheart, Cailin MacDougal. What he finds waiting for him is a dagger-toting hellion for a bride, an immortal father-in-law, and an enemy bent on extracting revenge by threatening the family James holds most dear–the MacDougals.

BRODERICK MAC DOUGAL is lured away from his family with the promise of–at last–learning a way to protect those he loves from his clan enemy, Angus Campbell. Broderick knows he’s headed for a trap, but the bait is too tempting to resist…and he unravels the beginning of a prophecy that will lead to redemption for all vampires. The cost of such redemption, though, may be the very soul of the woman he would die for…his wife, Davina.

Reader Advisory: This story contains some explicit love scenes, described using graphic and direct language. This story also contains explicit, nail-biting scenes of violence and sword fights.

My Review:

Burnz returns to her world of paranormal medieval Scotland with the same dark and mysterious writing style that we found in the first novel. She develops her rather intriguing plot in a straightforward manner, allowing the reader to flow forward with her. The descriptions paint a picture of the scenery and action for the audience. That said, there were times I found the story a bit unrealistic. And yes, I know this is a paranormal novel, but there were times when I found it to be unrealistic, and it had nothing to do with the paranormal. The way that Burnz’s writing meshes with the story matter at hand makes a stark contrast that presents things in a rather unforgiving light. I found myself thinking ‘did that really just happen?’ more than once.

I found the cast & dialogue of this novel more appealing than that of the first novel. Burnz has increased her character development so that you understand who everyone is. As much as I enjoyed the characters in this novel, I would have like to know more about their past. It’s so much easier to love a character when you know where they came from.

This was another enjoyable paranormal read from Burnz. I’m getting more into the series at this point and am intrigued to see what happens next.

|  Goodreads  |  Shelfari  |  Amazon  |  B&N  |

1 comment:

  1. Maybe it's a progression, the third will be even better :)

    ReplyDelete