Camille is a vampire who cannot kill, no matter how desperate his situation becomes. Faced with starvation and shunned by his natural family, he finds a solution to his problems in Damien, a professional assassin who belongs to the legendary Sulis Brotherhood. Camille offers Damien his services, his loyalty and his submission in exchange for regular meals and protection that the assassin will surely have no trouble providing for. Damien accepts the proposal, not realising how the vampire will change his life forever.
Warnings: mild BDSM content, explicit sex
It's gay Skyrim!
Or for those not gaming inclined; it's a fantasy novel filed with assassins, magic, bandits, and vampires!
Camille has never been able to bring himself to kill a living creature. Becoming a freshly made vampire hasn't changed that. Unless he learns how to take a life, and soon, starvation seems almost certain in his future.
Then Damien appears. A chance encounter with an assassin from the legendary assassin's guild, could just be the solution to Camille's problems. Protection and a regular source of meals in exchange for the only thing he has it value - his body and his loyalty.
Damien is intrigued by the blushing vampire, and while he had no desire to take care of a pet, he can't help marvel at Camille's submissive nature, and the contradiction between his power and gentleness.
Along the adventure, a mystery that follows Camille will be solved, sexy times ensue, and an assassin's heart will thaw due to his vampire's devotion.
This all sounds fantastic, and you're probably wondering why the low rating?
Well, that's because while the plot was a good one, the writing style held this book back. By a lot. And here's what it comes down to:
It was all too verbose.
"At the same time, those eyes, so deep and inviting, bestowed an innocence and an uncertainty that was interpreted almost as resistance but for Damien it was also and indeed essentially intoxicating. Ironically, the uncertainty actually triggered a primal instinct, an irrepressible desire to hunt, to track down, to devour his prey."
...
"He knew that voice, and suddenly he was more aware of his surroundings, suddenly he found himself being brought back to the situation before him. Once again the excruciating pain rapidly spread through his body. It seemed like his presence and power were physically contracting, his energies dissipating – returning to their more human-like state and with it, his clarity of thought, his judgment and feeling of self."
Sentences often splinter off into three thoughts, and it happens so often that information gets repeated unnecessarily. The repetition took me out of the story almost as much as the run on sentences did.
Feelings were told to the reader rather than shown, so I had a difficult time seeing the character's motivations and connection to each other.
And the pacing also felt off. Camille settled into his role in a blink of an eye, despite the fact that his personality was radically different before becoming a vampire. Feelings of love and loyalty emerged overnight, but read like they evolved overtime.
It all ended up with me feeling disconnected to the character's and their circumstance.
Essentially, this book needs a good edit.
Those who like plot over writing style, and really like the fantasy genre, will probably still enjoy this read. It has a good core. It just wasn't the one for me.
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