Love Bites (Argeneau) (edition 2009)

I have to say that this book, the second in the series, is much better that the first. The characters were more realistic and three-dimensional and the plot was more complex and engaging. I would have liked it if there was a bit more information about Pudge’s background story but not having it didn’t take away from the plot or character development.

The romance wasn’t epic or swoon worthy but it did have a natural progression that was believable. The plot was a little more fluff than hard core.

My rating breakdown is below. The romance and sensuality scores don’t factor into the total rating of the book but I like to keep track of them anyway. Please remember that this is just my opinion and you are entitled to yours.

Plot: 4 – Good plot with some surprises; usually more complex

Characters: 4 – Good characterization; characters are believable, relatable; emotional attachment

Creativity: 4 – original, well-developed, decent execution but left no lasting impression

Romance: 4 – Romantic; romance is present and clearly defined, mildly engaging

Sensuality: 3 – Sensual; moderate sexual activity, physical details are described but in a tasteful manner, some elements are still left to the readers imagination
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This book follows the same recipe as the first part of the series, only the roles are switched (male is a vampire and girl is a mortal).

* Mortal is kidnapped and held against their will in vampires home. Of course he/she falls in love with his captor.
* Villain is known to us from the very beginning and there is no mystery who it is and what does he wants. He manages to put the stake trough our heroes heart but they magically heal and avoid near death.

So, if you did not like the first book, just skip this one... ( )

OK, this is a book about a vampire, Etienne, whose only passion in life lately has been writing video games. He sits alone in his basement all night making the games & the crazy psycho killer of the novel is another game-writer who wanted a job with Etienne and didn't get one.

Then the heroine, Rachel, is a coroner with no social life. But seriously, no social life. She tells us over and over again - gee, I never go out, gee, what's there to do at night, gee, I caught my last lover having sex with my roommate and that was years ago in college. Her first major bonding experience with Etienne post-crossover is...spending a whole night with him playing video games. 10 hours straight. It made me feel sad.

Look, if you can get past this, maybe you will like the book. But I couldn't find Etienne sexy, no matter how silvery his eyes or impressive his physique. Not just because he spends all his time in a basement with his computers, or because - as he admits one morning to his mother - he hasn't had sex in two or three decades. No, it's because he's such a puppy dog. He's a kid. Bashful and a little dumb where women are concerned and eager to please. He acts a lot closer to twenty than three hundred.

Plus, and maybe I've just been reading too many of these vampire novels lately, but I am a little tired of the part of the novel when the heroine says something flip and a little rude and some older yet wiser vampire chuckles and observes, "Isn't she delightful?"

Also, this is a novel in which the vampires think that biting people is really taboo. They don't bite one another, they don't bite humans, they don't even appear to be very interested in biting. Where's the fun in that? They do, however, make all sorts of interesting blood cocktails. That's nice, but...eh.
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For the purposes of disclosure, I must admit that had I known that Love Bites was a paranormal romance, I never would have agreed to read this book. I am normally not a fan of paranormal romance, and try to avoid the genre altogether. That said, I must admit that I kind of liked the book. Yes, it had the usual boy meets girl, girl runs away from boy, and boy and girl get together storyline. It was extremely predictable for a lot of the book, but I still found it entertaining and when it comes to reading anything, the ability to hold my attention is extremely important. Unlike many paranormal romance books, I didn't find myself stopping because doing laundry seemed more interesting than reading this book.

I suppose I should give you a little background now. Etienne is a three hundred year old vampire who suddenly shows up in Rachel's morgue with a gunshot directly to his heart. Immediately Rachel finds herself attracted to the corpse however she calms herself when she realizes that what she is thinking about actually amounts to necrophilia. Rachel is sick with the flu and when Etienne sits up and begins to speak to her, she believes that she is having a fever induced hallucination and promptly passes out. Days later when he arrives in her morgue yet again he burned from head to toe but this time, a man intent on finishing the job actually mortally wounds Rachel when she attempts to save Etienne from having his head shopped off. To be clear, she intervened because she thought she sensed a heart beat coming from him.

When she awakes next she is in Etienne's home and he is faced with task of telling her that he has made her vampire rather than letting her die. What follows is one of the most humorous exchange that I have read in a paranormal romance book ever. With references to neck sucking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rachel attempts to understand what has happened to her. Next comes a series of interchanges with Etienne's vampire family and I can tell you that in between the mushy lovey dovey vanilla sex, that the laughs keep coming.

I really wanted to like Etienne, but I found his attempts to force Rachel to stay with him to be extremely manipulative. Rather than to help her take blood on her own he actually fed her spoiled blood so that she was be forced to rely on him for intravenous feeding. I also didn't like the fact that Etienne's cousin gave Rachel drug laced blood to encourage sex between Etienne and Rachel. When we consider how often women are slipped date rape drugs, this was uncomfortable to say the least. Even though Rachel did consent and consent enthusiastically to sex the degree to which she influenced by the drugs bothered me. When it comes to consent and sexual activity, there should never be any murky water.

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This is the only one of the Argeneau Series that I hadn't read, and so it was a delight to read. More so than I thought it would.
Rachel Garrett works in the morgue at the hospital, and when a dead man comes in from a gun shot wound, she is to process him. However she finds herself gazing at the most handsome dead man she has ever met. Rachel thinks she must be crazy, to have the hots for someone who is dead. Then when he wakes up, she is more shocked than ever. A little while later another corpse is brought in, a burnt one from a explosion, however she then realizes he is alive, then a crazy man comes in armed with a ax tries to kill the "supposed dead guy" she moves in front of him and saves his life, however her life is now at risk. Etienne knowing that he had no choice turns her, knowing that she had saved his life, and even though he can only turn one person, not yet fully realizing that Rachel is his lifemate. Etienne then takes her to his home for the turning and adjustment that she is going to need to accept the face that she is a Immortal or Vampire. Etienne, has his life threatened by a mortal, but he is resistant to the idea of killing him, he tries to avoid him. However in doing so, he almost killed his lifemate. Now Etienne's worry is whether or not Rachel will come to accept him into her life. Rachel wakes up confused and not believing that this is all real, her being turned a vampire. So at first she tries to treat it like a dream, (which definitely will fill you up with laughter) and when she starts to reallize that this is real, and after realizes Etienne did it to save her life, she then finds herself seeing the man behind what she at first believed him to be "a soulless bloodsucker" and the journey that will bring these two together will surprise and delight you.

I have found that I truly loved reading this, as this is the only one that I haven't read out of the Argeneau Series, and I don't know why I haven't read it yet, I had thought I had read the whole series. But when I saw Love Bites at the Library, the cover didn't look familiar to me, so when I realized I had yet to read Etienne and Rachel's story, I knew I couldn't resist. Rachel cracked me up through the whole thing, but especially at first with her believing that this situation is just a mere dream, from Etienne's family trying to push them together, which was by far amusing yet satisfying in the end. Etienne, oh boy, he sure needed a shove when learning how to woo his lifemate, he makes so many mistakes I felt so bad for him. It was like I wanted to shake him with common sense, but he proved to know how to do things right in the end. It was definitely a piece of cake that is worth tasting, that is pure romance, danger, and a mix of humor that will have you falling off your seat in amusement. ( )