Amaury’s Hellion by Tina Folsom

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Title: Amaury's Hellion
Author: Tina Folsom
Series: Scanguards Vampires #2
Published by: Indie
Release Date: July 2, 2010
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 273
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Erotica
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 #LetsReadIndie Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 Beat the Backlist Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

Vampire Amaury LeSang is cursed to feel everybody's emotions like a permanent migraine. The only way to alleviate the pain is through sex. When he meets the feisty human woman Nina, a cure for his ailment seems within reach: in her presence all pain vanishes.

Unfortunately, Nina is out to kill him because she believes he's involved in her brother's death. And she would succeed if only Amaury's bad boy charm didn't play havoc with her hormones and catapulted her into his arms and his bed every time she was near him.

As every kiss brings them physically closer, danger is lurking and threatens to destroy the little trust they have in each other.

My Review:

3.5 stars — I originally marked this as 4 stars on Goodreads, but I read it back before I started writing reviews.  I’ve definitely changed as a person and a reader, and so this is more like 3-3.5 stars for me now.  I’ll be generous considering my initial feelings, but I’m definitely rounding down.

The book starts off with a warning about it dealing with taboo topics, which intrigued me because I didn’t really remember much.  I think in our current political landscape, Amaury’s sexual advances are…not kosher?  Like good for fantasy material, but if you have sensitivity on clear consent topics, then it might tweak you.  That’s kind of what did it for me.  That’s not really my fantasy…or at least I need it to be presented in a different way than it was in this book.  I totally get fiction and stuff, but given what Nina dealt with in her past, his “male persuasive techniques” felt a bit over the line for me.

So the funny thing is that YET AGAIN it was not the romance that kept me interested in this book.  It’s still the world, the overarching plot, the huge cast of secondary characters, and to some degree the backgrounds of our main characters.  My heart truly did break for Amaury’s past and what he was dealing with.  And I did feel Nina’s love for her brother, and how screwed up she was from her past.  And I was hella intrigued by the “bad guy” in this book, and that story.

But the romance left me a bit bored.  I think I enjoyed the first almost encounter (after the vampire attack), but most of the rest I started wanting to skim.  I just wasn’t connecting with their romance.  Lots of lust, not a lot of other connection.

So yeah.  I’ll keep reading the books I already own, but if I don’t get a bit more out of them, I doubt I will try to finish the series.