Love Bites

Love Bites by Lynsay Sands
Book #2: Argeneau Series
Source: Purchase (Print and Audible)
My Rating: 4½/5 stars

After more than 300 years of living, Etienne Argeneau finally has some new entertainment. He has a Pudge. More specifically, Pudge is a completely disturbed human who has decided, in sad, his muddled mind that he must kill Etienne. After 300 years, Etienne is willing to play along until he or his family can come up with a way to safely dispose of the disturbed man.

And then Etienne lands himself in the morgue . . . . twice!

Rachel Garrett considers herself to be a rational woman of science, but when the corpse of the seriously hot man appears in her morgue, twice, it’s time to start questioning some things. Since a person can’t show more die twice, there must be an explanation. Thankfully, that explanation comes in two forms: 1) the first time he “died” was just a hallucination brought on by the flu; 2) the second time he “died” was because something called Pudge blew him up. But, what the hell is a Pudge and why was he going on and on about the dead man being a vampire and why are all the crispy burned bits flaking off?

When Rachel eventually comes to, she has a metric ton of questions. One would think, after 300+ years of life, Etienne would be far better at answering questions. He is not, and it takes about 30 seconds for him to convince Rachel she is in the midst of a dream. A very long, very heavily populated, weirdly erotic dream, that involves Etienne’s mother . . . . wait, what? Since no one’s mother should ever appear in a wet dream, Etienne’s mother and sister take over and have a serious conversation with Rachel about her new life situation.

Though Rachel is justifiably freaked out by her situation, she’s learning to cope with it with Etienne’s help. Though Rachel frustrates Etienne, she also challenges him and brings to life thoughts and feelings he has firmly tucked away for many a long and lonely decade. She’s sexy and smart, funny and capable, and willing to put in the hard work needed to adjust to her new life. She also loves his video game 😊 As if the new life training wheels weren’t enough, Rachel and Etienne also have to deal with the continued presence of Pudge. Dealing with Pudge is a necessity and as Rachel and Etienne soon find out, it is a necessity that will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Pudge has plans . . . .

The Bottom Line: I liked this installment of the Argeneau series even better than the first! Rachel is hilarious in her determination to believe she is caught up in a dream, and Etienne’s “stupidity” after 300+ years of life is stunning. His poor mother 😊 There are so many funny, sexy, silly moments in this book that I couldn’t take my headphones off. Yeah, I listened to this one cover to cover, so to speak, in a single sitting and loved every minute. I particularly enjoyed watching Rachel unravel Etienne’s world and reminding him that he may be old, but there is a lot more living yet to be done. As for me, I have many more Argeneau’s to rediscover so it’s onward and upward . . . . . show less

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, show more 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. show less

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 show more 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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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 show more 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.

Read More show less

It's a perfectly serviceable paranormal romance suffering from a complete lack of plot. The hero is territorial-lite, the heroine is way too cool with being quasi-kidnapped in a way that was somehow super annoying. The "science" angle felt unnecessary, but might pan out in the rest of the series? I'm unlikely to find out! Anyway, it's fine, it's fine!

Two Minute Review for “Love Bites” by Lynsay Sands

Rachel Garret saves the Vampire Etienne Argeneau from certain death, twice. Etienne has a choice, save her and loose his chance to create a life mate later, or watch the woman who saved him die. Well you know what choice he makes. Can you guess who his life mate turns out to be? Very, very predictable there are no interesting plot twists. The characters are not driven, pushed or stretched at all. A cute romance with a few funny parts is about all I got out of this. Better than some, not as good as others. Ho Hum.

The is the second Argeneau Vampires tale by Lyndsay Sands, if read in the author's intended reading order. This is the story of Rachel, a morgue attendant who is working her usual night shift when a dead man is brought in twice. Yes, it the same dead man. Etienne has been killed twice, once by a bullet through the heart and then again burnt to crisp. Rachel finds herself sickeningly attracted to what she assumes is a corpse. Things aren't as they appear of course and Etienne is a vampire. Rachel saves Etienne's life and then he repays the favor. The only way he can save her life though is to 'turn' her into a vampire. Etienne must than house her and teach her all the ways of the vampire. The portion of the book dealing with Etienne show more showing up in the morgue, revealing himself to her, and then saving and turning her is top-notch storytelling. I was enraptured by the book at this point and convinced I had found a winner. After Rachel is turned the book begins a downward spiral from which it never quite recovers. The tale becomes just plain silly when the focus turns to romance between the two vamps. This includes some of the cheesiest and just plain odd dialouge I have ever come across in my years of romance and/or paranormal reading. Even the sex scenes are yawn and cringe worthy. The end tries to recapture some of the book's earlier enjoyment with the showdown against Etienne's rival/stalker. But by this point, the book stumbles into another downfall. The ending delves straight into the old tried and true formula romance. There is a misunderstanding between the couple and one of the couple runs away. They spend some time apart, and finally come back together again, after both admit how miserable they were apart. Ok, I think we've all read that plotline a few too many times. Except for the beginning of the story, this book shows none of the comical fun and romance of "A Quick Bite". I must say, I am a little disappointed. show less