totally hooked into the mythos of this world. ( )

I was given this book to read through the Making Connections ARR group, thank you.

This is a Hearts of Fire Review.




Summary:

Alison Wells’ supernatural powers have grown stronger over her lifetime. She is also discovering new ones. Cutting herself off from relationships with men and society because of the danger she poses, Alison isolates herself more and more. Not knowing where to turn, she closes up her psychiatric practice. Little does she know that as soon as she leaves her office building, everything she has ever known will change. Her last client of the day is Darian, and there is something very odd about him. Leaving her office with Darian by her side, Alison is confronted by a bizarre sight, a floating, winged vampire, a death vamp that wants her blood. A Warrior vamp named Kerrick shows up to kill the death vamp, and in the end is assigned to protect Allison during her ascension. Inexplicably drawn to Kerrick, Alison knows that he is a kindred spirit and can answer her questions. But will he? And what is this ‘ascension’ that he mentioned? Alison finds out that her life is in extreme danger for the next three days. If she survives, Alison will join a world she never knew existed, and be transformed beyond her wildest imaginings.


Review:

The story of Ascension takes place over approximately three days. Told in third person, we see through the eyes of numerous characters throughout the book. The author did a good job of delineating who was speaking either by chapter or paragraph separators.

When I started to read the story, I was as surprised as Alison seeing her first winged vampire. Vampires don’t have wings, let alone fight Warrior vampires that also have wings. I don’t normally read books on Vampires, but the idea of winged vampires from opposing factions caught my attention.

From the very beginning the author created a unique world, a Second Earth, which existed right alongside our own. I liked the mix of Mortal Earth elements, such as technology and food within Second Earth. Second Earth was a world where Warrior vampires fought death vampires, and where vampires not only drank blood, but Gatorade, Maker’s Mark, and ate energy bars.

The author did a good job of making Alison come across as sad and lonely because she needed to hide her powers in order not to harm others or have people fear her. Alison lives in a state of confusion as she learns about Second Earth, her developing powers, and what it means to ascend. The state of Alison’s fears, confusion and desire seemed appropriate for the situations that occurred most of the time. However, there was an excessive amount of crying on Alison’s part throughout the book.

Alison’s love interest is Kerrick, a stunning piece of male physique, as are all the Warriors. Kerrick is the fastest of the Warriors of the Blood and has taken a vow not to remarry. He carries tremendous guilt over the deaths of his family he wasn’t able to save. Alison’s fears of harming Kerrick with her powers and Kerrick’s guilt over the past deaths are the stumbling blocks each must overcome in order to find happiness with the other. In their favor is ‘breh-hedden,’ a mate-bonding ritual that calls for completion when a Warrior finds his mate. Usually I don’t like ‘instant love’ in a story, but because this is a paranormal book and the author uses the ‘breh-hedden’ as a way of explaining the attraction between Alison and Kerrick, it works. I especially found the sense of smell in recognizing the one who is meant for you, interesting. I do think however, that the resistance the two shared over completing the breh-hedden went on for too long in the story. The tension was no longer as exciting and resulted in a wish to get it over with, rather than anticipation. Also Kerrick’s speech patterns and word usage sometimes sounded like he was a teenager or a woman trying to sound like a man. I would automatically stop to think, “Was the author a teenager?”

The author has good ideas for the sex scenes, but they are rather stiff. Too much detail slows down the flow of the scenes. There’s potential in the sexy encounters if the descriptions weren’t so long and more sexy terminology was used. For instance, the author overused the words ‘internal muscles’ to excess during the sex scenes. Those words do not conjure up physical sexiness or passion, but are rather clinical sounding. It actually made the encounters sound unpleasant. Also Alison had so many multiple orgasms that it bordered on the supernatural. The multiple orgasms made the sex less realistic and turned the scenes into ‘eye-rolls’ at the quantity of orgasms.

We don’t get a good look at the personalities of the other Warriors in Ascension, possibly because the author intends to elaborate more in the following books to the series. The leader of the Warriors is Supreme High Administrator Endelle, and she is the most detailed of the characters besides Alison and Kerrick. As is mentioned by the Warriors, Endelle gives ‘bitch’ a bad name, and that pretty much sums up her character, besides being more powerful than any of the Warriors. Alison may possibly turn out to be more powerful than Endelle, but we don’t know that yet in this book.

An undercurrent of humor ran through Ascension. It wasn’t overwhelming, but added a nice counterpoint to the stressful situations the characters often found themselves in. As an example, various characters would ruminate on what kind of animal outfit Endelle was wearing that day. The characters always seemed amused or perplexed and I thought it was a fun touch to the story.

Another aspect of the book that I liked was the use of Dreams as a form of prophecy. Dreams were highly valued on Second Earth. Prophetic dreams usually started at the beginning of a 'call to ascension.' In Alison’s case, the Dreams also told her what role she was to play on Second Earth.

The pacing of the story was good during the action and dialogue scenes, but as soon as the action switched to descriptions of clothing, environment or internal thoughts, the pace slowed down tremendously. There was too much description and I had a hard time keeping my attention on what was happening when there wasn’t action or dialogue. I think an easy fifty to seventy-five pages could have been cut from this book by eliminating the excessive description and making the pace more consistent rather than the start and stop effect that occurred much too often. Another issue was the verbose narration during situations the characters found themselves in. Thoughts and ideas were repeated, but rephrased in different paragraphs with different words. The paragraphs should have been combined, eliminating duplicate or similar sentences. This would have kept the story from dragging.

A few words are much overused like: ‘preternatural,’ ‘whatever,’ and the previously mentioned ‘internal muscles.’ The overuse of ‘preternatural’ is most evident because the word itself is not prevalently used in speaking, so it becomes glaring when reading it time and again. The use of the word “whatever,” is frequently used during the character’s thoughts about others, and feels like it was just thrown in to register an “I don’t care attitude.” Instead, it comes across as teenage slang and becomes quite annoying by its appearance, and especially feels out of place when the Warriors use it.

There's a handy terminology guide at the end of book for those people interested in a more thorough understanding of the terms used in the book.

The author created a unique world that I very much enjoyed, but needs to really cut back on the overuse of description, redundancy and the repetitive use of words that don’t convey imagery. Removing the verbosity, would have made this book a more exciting read instead of having it drag at too many points. Also the dialogue of the Warriors could stand to be more consistent so they don’t sound like macho men one moment, then teenagers or women the next. The world creation is what kept me reading this book and what would bring me back for the next stories. I only hope the author has improved her writing abilities so that the following books are not as wordy as this one was. In the end I give this book 3 stars.

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Ascension
2 Stars

Synopsis:
Kerrick is one of the Guardians of Ascension, sexy vampire warriors with wings assigned to protect humans called to Ascension. Foresworn to never love again, Kerrick's vow is tested when he must guard Alison Wells, a woman with incredible supernatural powers, from Death Vampires. Alison has always felt like an outsider until she is caught up in a battle for supremacy between opposing armies and the only one she can trust is a man who refuses to accept that they are destined for each other.

Review:
I really wanted to enjoy this book but unfortunately found myself struggling despite its potential.

While the relationship between the hero and heroine is steamy, the romance and chemistry is lacking - the only reason they get together is the mating bond. Alison starts out as an intriguing character with emotional and familial issues, but their resolution is completely contrived and ultimately undermines her characterization. Other than the fact that Kerrick is a sexy, alpha male, there is little to set him apart from the dozens of other similar characters in various PNR series.

None of the secondary characters is particularly appealing and they are actually irritating and off-putting. Endelle, for example, is supposedly a majestic and powerful leader but resorts to dirty talk and even pimping out her warriors. Thorne comes across as nothing but a boorish alcoholic who shouldn't be leading anyone into battle, and Marcus, the only one with any redeeming qualities, is a sanctimonious jerk.

The writing is excessively descriptive and repetitious, often focusing on irrelevant issues and the world building is lacking in any substantial explanation and detail.

Overall, a real disappointment and I doubt that I will be reading any further.
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I won this print in Ms Roane's contest and loved Kerrick and Alison's story! Kerrick is a twelve centuries year old, a vampire warrior, and he fought the hunger of one woman for two hundred years. He is a Guardian of Ascension and has sworn to protect Alison from the death vamp armies that crave her blood and her power. He fights the temptation to open his heart and veins to Alison as it's forbidden.

Alison Wells is no ordinary human, but was born with supernatural powers and can never make love to a man without placing him in grave danger. Her visions have shown her a man with wings and she's attracted to the image ( )

This is one of the best vampire romances I have read in ages.

When I first started my initial thoughts were this was going to be a Black Dagger Brotherhood ripoff. And as much as I love Blackdagger boys, these warriors were ten times more sexy. The main male character's general attitude and his pure brute strength and sensuality were outstanding.

The plot was densely woven with equal parts steaming romance, fast paced action, plenty of angst and a good helping of humor. Very intricate world building and utterly fantastic character development. You really get to know these characters and feel as they get used to each other.

A fantastic gripping novel which I loved from start to finish. ( )