This is the first book in the Cin Craven historical paranormal romance series. There are three books in this series. I have had this book on my to be read pile for some time and was excited to finally get around to reading it. This was an engaging and quick read, I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the book’s historical setting; this book is set in the Victorian era and I always enjoy that setting for books. This book does have some action, but I would say it is more of a paranormal romance than urban fantasy in tone.

Cin is a proper woman who finds herself with strong witch powers rather suddenly. The magic system behind her witch powers is never all that well explained. She also finds herself being hunted down by an old suitor turned vampire.

I enjoyed The Righteous a lot, they are your somewhat typical band of good vampires that kick the evil vampires’ butts. They were fun to read about and there are some great action scenes between them.

I do have a few complaints about the book. The first is that I thought the chemistry between Cin and Michael was just so-so. They do the insta-love thing which I don’t really like. They also don’t seem to have a ton in common besides a dislike of evil vampires and some strange attraction to each other.

My second complaint is that there is pretty much no world building here or explanation of why/how paranormal creatures exist in this world. I prefer my paranormal romance books to have some world building and a solid plot.

Which leads me to my third complaint...the plot here is very very simple and predictable. There really isn’t all that much that’s complex going on in this story; it’s incredibly straight-forward.

The writing flows well and is decent. The book is an incredibly quick read and entertaining. While this book isn’t anything special it was decently done and provided me with an afternoon of easy reading and amusement.

Overall this was a decent paranormal romance vampire book. Everything in here was okay but not great. I felt like the chemistry between the two main characters could have been better, the world-building was non-existent, and the plot was pretty predictable. That being said this was exactly what I was looking for...a nice easy read that was fairly engaging and quick. I would recommend if you want a light and easy paranormal romance read. I probably won’t continue with the series because I just like my books with a bit more plot and a more complex and interesting world. ( )

Mourning the death of her parents ad shutting herself up in her room, it’s the last thing she needs to have her life endangered by a vampire who wants to possess her wild and uncontrollable powers. She finds herself and her servants imprisoned in her own house, knowing the evil is waiting just outside to capture her or worse. Her only hope is the mythical band of vampire warriors who kill evil vampires and they arrive when summoned and bring with them the hero who develops a deeper relationship with the heroine. It was an alright book but really nothing special or groundbreaking. It was really geared more towards the fantasy genre than romance so it didn’t intrigue me as much. Also, the story is based in historical England yet modern phrasing more often than naught crept in and ruined the setting. If your book is set in the past, it’s laziness when you can’t keep the speech in the period. Also, I didn’t much like the heroine or hero mainly because they weren’t memorable. I won’t read the other books in the series. ( )

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EEwwwww. I'm not liking this writing style; it has a choppy stop/go hesitation flow. Not to much of a fan of that. Hopefully it gets better.

I read this when it was self-published, so maybe some of the things that drove me crazy are better now that it's made it through an editor. (Although, when I tried to give it another chance in its revised form, I found too many of the same problems, so I didn't ever finish the re-read).

Anyway, the sheer number of WTF? moments specifically related to the sociocultural context in which it was set made it almost completely nonsensical. (i.e., the world-building was crap. Those characters in that time would not have known that, and they certainly wouldn't have talked about it like that. That = many different things. The one "that" that stands out most in my memory relate to the goddess Kali.)

The characters were... unfinished? It was like watching stick-figure cartoons set against a nonsensical backdrop. I can see how some people might find that enjoyable in a zany sort of way, maybe, but I got the sense that it wasn't deliberate or intentional on the author's part, which may be why it drove me so batty. Or it could be that the characters were so here! there! all over the place I never got a good understanding of why they behaved as they did.

I liked the concept, but the finished product didn't really pull together for me. ( )

I first read this book when it was self-published in 2006 and loved it. When I heard that Jenna Maclaine got picked up by St. Martin's Press I was so excited. So, naturally I had to read it again.

This book was even better the second time around. After reading this the first time, I really got me interested into reading Historicals again. Ms. Maclaine has created an exciting and fresh twist on witches and vampires. Cin and Michael burn bright from their first meeting and they keep you turning the pages, to see what happens next. My favorite thing though is "The Righteous" themselves. A group of vampires fighting evil, I can't wait to find out more about them and what's next for them. ( )