Red Hot Books

I've often said that I've never met a tortured hero who I didn't like. Well, now I have.

Julian has spent the past 6 months in hell with his buddy Declan. They've been tortured and parts of their souls have been ripped out. Now they must find a fallen angel named Azaiel to keep evil forces from the inter-dimensional portal he protects. If they don't succeed, they'll lose what little of their souls they have left and will walk the Earth as shades.

Almost immediately upon his return, Julian comes face to face with Jaden. Both Julian and Jaden are jaguar shifters, who hooked up once, years ago. But once he found out that she came from a rival family, he rejected her outright. He didn't realize at the time, she had claimed him as her mate. Now, the two of them must work together, along with a group of other warriors to find Azaiel and the evil sorcerer Cormac, who holds him prisoner.

Julian is a complete and utter bastard. Yes, I know he's missing part of his soul, but I simply could not get over the horrific way he treats Jaden. He breaks her heart over and over and over. Jaden's a warrior, but for crying out loud, no one should have to endure the cruelty she suffers from the people she loves. I kept waiting for Julian to come around, but he's even cruel to her when they finally sleep together again. In the second half, he starts to soften towards her, but it's really too little too late.

This is the third installment in a trilogy and it really took me a while to understand what was going on. Part of the problem was that I wasn't sure (and I'm still not) how much was information that I would have gleaned from the earlier books and how much was new and being revealed for the first time. I wish there would have been a little recapping to help me wade through things like why it's bad to be a DeCosta, who Cormac is to the existing characters, or what the portal is supposed to even do. I got all of my answers eventually, but the nagging questions burned until I figured it all out.

All that criticism aside, I really feel like I would like a book by this author, if I could catch the series from the beginning and if the hero isn't an asshat. I even went so far as to check out His Darkest Hunger, the first book in this series. Then I found out that hero is cruel to his heroine too. Maybe the next series... 3 1/2 stars.


*ARC Provided by NetGalley