Grade: C

I’ve never read a romance novel with gargoyles in it. I suspect this is because gargoyles are not traditionally sexy creatures. When I think of gargoyles, I think of those creepy stone statues with giant wings perched on some old building or something. I have never found them hawt, mostly because they are usually bald, and have big ears and big fucking teeth. That shit ain’t sexy. The hero of this book is a gargoyle… a real honest to goodness gargoyle with claws and wings and big fucking teeth. Fortunately for the heroine, his human form is a hunka hunka burning hunk of a man complete with rock-hard, gleaming man-titty. In this story, the heroine is a sex slave to a pack of evil gargoyles, and the hero is a good gargoyle who infiltrates the gang and saves her. Oh, but don’t worry, the heroine doesn’t sleep with anyone but the hero. Worst. Sex slave. Ever.Our girl Mara Kincaide operates a battered women’s shelter in Chicago. But she’s not an average do-gooder. In fact, she grew up in East LA where she was exposed to all sorts of violence, drugs, and just plain evil. This means that she is not a naïve little milkmaid whom the hero has to teach and guide along. Oh, yeah, and she has served time in prison for killing a man in Memphis (just kidding, it was in LA), and she wasn’t framed by some corrupt, shadowy figures, either. She killed a man (who was trying to rape her), owned up to it, and was punished for it. When her best friend Angela goes missing, she does the smart thing, and goes to the cops. Unfortunately, they’re zero help to her, so she decides to investigate for herself. She finds out that the job ad that Angela had answered was completely bogus, so she applies for the “job” herself, and ends up in the same deep shit as Angela. Worst of all, Angela is still nowhere to be found and the other women who have been kidnapped before Mara are being raped and used as brood mares by the evil gargoyles.

Enter our hero, Connor Riyadh. At first, he doesn’t seem like the hero (it’s a totally ineffective fake-out because the back blurb spoils it), because he “kills” the hero from the first book as an initiation to the gang of the evil gargoyles. I haven’t read the first book, but I get the idea that he was supposed to be “gray” in that one because he fakes being a bad guy pretty well. Anyway, he was chosen by the good gargoyles to infiltrate the gang of the evil gargoyles to find out their nefarious plans. He does the bad guy act, even slapping the heroine once, and pretending to rape her to impress the evil gargoyles. Because he doesn’t want anyone else touching her, however, he “claims” her for his own and demands that she sleep in his room. They talk, they make out, he finger-bangs (snerk!) her in his sleep, they fall in love.

I don’t know what to feel about this book because technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Taylor provides an accessible gargoyle mythology and even though I hadn’t read the first book, had no trouble following along. It was a fast, easy read, and I finished it in two hours, but nothing about it stuck with me. It’s not a bad story, but it just seemed like a by-numbers paranormal romance complete with italicized dream sequences. Even though the creature of choice here is a gargoyle, Taylor could have stuck werewolves or vampires in its place, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. It just seemed like Taylor decided to write a paranormal romance, read a couple of Kenyons, Showalters, Feehans, and Sizemores to prepare herself for the task, then set out to write the damn thing immediately afterward. As I read it, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind of the author going down a “paranormal romance must-haves” checklist and cackling with glee as she checked off each item. It was just so mediocre and average that it reminded me of a date with a nice and pleasant guy who does nothing for you, but you don’t want to blow him off because he’s so… nice and pleasant.

As for Mara and Connor, the two of them together did nothing for me, but I really enjoyed Mara on her own. She isn’t a whiny little crybaby and keeps a level-head about herself throughout the book. I also liked that she doesn’t hesitate to admit to herself that she is attracted to Connor, even after he reveals to her his true form. She is smart, vicious when she needs to be, and brutally honest to herself. As for Connor, we’ve seen him before in other paranormal romances. He’s large, he growls, he broods, and he keeps HUGE secrets from the heroine. Nothing new to see here, people. There is some sexual tension between these two, but it just seemed like the type to develop between two people stuck together in a high-stress situation. It didn’t feel real or true.

The truth is, this book is alright, but there is nothing commendable about it. The gargoyles are an interesting concept, but Taylor does nothing new with it. It’s a cool idea, but Taylor doesn’t follow through. In short, we get this derivative, incomplete mess that feels like a bunch of other ideas taken from other paranormal romances, and slapped together with Elmer’s glue. It offers nothing new to the genre. I’m intrigued enough, however, to read the first book of the series and may concede to read the third one when it comes out (chew on that one for a while). I feel like Taylor wanted to do something cool here, but I just wished she figured out what. Hopefully the series will improve because we really need something new in this rapidly aging genre and I really don’t want to read the first four books of Hamilton’s Anita Blake series every time I get a hankering for a good spooky romance.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: C, Romance: Paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.