Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire (Love at Stake)

Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire (Love at Stake) by Kerrelyn Sparks (Dec 30, 2014)

Formats
Kindle Edition Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on December 30, 2014.
Mass Market Paperback Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on December 30, 2014.

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2014

New York Times bestselling author Kerrelyn Sparks delivers the exciting conclusion in the Love at Stake series, where a Marine-turned-vampire finds love with the shifter princess forbidden to him . . .

Russell wakes from a coma to find he's become a vampire. Now he has a thirst for revenge. Determined to hunt down the master vampire who turned him, he's used to working alone . . . until he meets Jia. She is after the same vampire for murdering her parents and insists she can help Russell on this mission. Reluctantly, he agrees, and sets up some ground rules:

Rule #1: Their partnership is strictly business. If he holds her a little too close . . . if she looks at him with those exotic eyes . . . well, that has to stop.

Rule #2: He's in charge. Jia isn't used to taking orders and questions every move he makes. So he stops her the only way he knows how.

Rule #3: Don't fall in love. But the kiss that was supposed to quiet her awakens something else in him . . . something forbidden. Because Jia is engaged. To someone else.

After all these years, it is finally time to bid this series adieu. I have followed this series from the beginning although not religiously. I have a difficult time with series that start with one couple starring in several books and then each subsequent book stars a new couple.  I never really get the feel for the later romances and the main story line of seeing the end put to great evil, seems to fall to the wayside.

 Many fans of this series are going to be - either greatly upset at the way this book plays out or very happy with the ending and the fact that somewhere down the road there may be more written later about these characters.  My guess would be that there would be some novellas interspersed between books in the authors’ new series.

 This book follows the romance/speculative fiction formulas perfectly. We start with the foiled attempt at the enemy, followed by many self-recriminations on the part of the hero and heroine.  We then neatly segue into the building of the romance and the heroine Jia acting as if she were a small child. (I didn’t like the fact that the author made the heroine seem so utterly immature and naïve even though she is only 21).  However, we soon get to the meat of the story, although and of course, not without many setbacks and deaths and one very, very large and unpleasant surprise!

And true to the formula, Russell soon overcomes his 42 years (39 of them in a vampire coma and three on the hunt for Master Han) of pain and misery with the love (and hot sex) of a good woman!

The style of writing is not totally my cup of tea anymore, but it is a fun read nonetheless.