Vampires

Elle Lacerta

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book is the first in a 5 book series that is dark/fantasy romance. For the quick and short of it, Iris is sold off to the Caed kingdom, specifically Roman. In order for her to gain access to the Academy, she has to serve him, in all the ways you can think of. She has daily chores and then “nightly” chores. She is given over to this ruling family to help pay off her father’s gambling debts.

First, I want to start out on the things I was not a fan of. While I get this was a short story, sometimes it was hard to keep up with how much time had passed, or did not pass. There seemed to be a massive jump between the time she is plotting their demise and her in bed with Rowan and the two falling in love with each other. I thought maybe something had gotten cut out or I missed it, but I felt lost during those parts. This is also true in the scene with Alex, and the level of anger Rowan had felt. I was a little confused there to, everything happens so fast. Also, the language used at first was incredibly flowery. I have ADHD and I found myself really struggling to get through the sentences, especially with words that are not entirely common ways to describe things. However, with that said, given the type of fantasy setting this book is referring to, the over descriptive words seems appropriate. It changes a bit throughout the book and is not a problem after that.

I like Iris, though I am a bit confused by her. She is a spitfire, a little bratty, but also really confusing. I am hoping as the story continues through, we will get more backstory on her and Rowan to understand them better. There is plenty of spice, some was fade to black (which is why I thought I missed something, because it is not clearcut fade to black). The scenes are not very long, but still spicy. I like how the BDSM elements are not overbearing. Sometimes the “Doms” in the book are incredibly toxic all around, and even though these Vampires are incredibly toxic, I feel like this is acceptable in fantasy romance novels that include the paranormal.

The book ends on a cliffhanger, but the books are set to release weekly, so if you pick it up, you should not have to wait long 🙂 I look forward to seeing the trajectory of the overall story. At this point, I am not sure where it is going…but I definitely know who the bad guys are!

Author: Louise Cypress

Narrators: Reba Buhr, Alexander Cendese

Length: 8 hours 48 minutes

Series: The Puritan Coven Series, Book 3

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Release date: Feb. 19, 2019

Genre: Paranormal Romance; Young Adult

He’s a vampire bad boy. She’s a slayer’s daughter who’s never been kissed.

Kyle Logan has been a 16-year-old bad boy for three years, ever since he became a vampire. After a stint at the rehab center run by the Brothers of Temperance, Kyle has finally kicked his blood addiction. Now, he’s back in high school with one goal in mind: stay clean so he can grow up and become an animal-rights activist.

Cassandra Xander wants two things in 10th grade: a car and the chance to attend a traditional high school. She loved being homeschooled growing up, especially since her family moved every six months for Helsing Incorporated, but now that her mother is founding a slayer training academy in La Jolla, California, Cassandra is excited by the opportunity to attend La Jolla Cove High.

When Kyle witnesses Cassandra give a verbal reckoning to a dog owner who leaves her beagle locked in a sweltering car, Kyle makes his move. He loves that Cassandra is smart, intense, and willing to break rules. But Cassandra has zero experience dating and isn’t sure a relationship with a hot-tempered vampire is a good place to start – especially when she discovers Kyle’s secret ability.

Kyle works hard to master his emotions and make all of Cassandra’s high school dreams come true. Just when their romance brightens both of their lives, Kyle’s past draws him back into darkness. The only way forward for these high school sweethearts is to slay or pay.

Louise Cypress believes in friendship, true love, and the everlasting power of books. She has never met a vampire or a mermaid, but she has been to a Love Sucks concert on Valentine’s Day. She can often be found curled up with a romance novel on Saturday night, diet soda in hand, secretly wishing bustles were back in fashion. Louise is from San Diego, California, where the beach is crowded and summer is immortal.

Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Goodreads⎮Instagram

Narrator Bio

Reba Buhr grew up in the Pacific Northwest and now lives in Los Angeles, working in theater, film, and television. She has degrees from Occidental College in theater and classical voice. Reba began recording audiobooks in 2012 and has turned her love for performance into a passion for narrating characters that jump off the page. Reba is an accomplished voice actor and has lent her voice to many commercials, video games, and animated projects, including Popples and Knights of Sidonia for Netflix, Toonami’s Hunter x Hunter, and Zagtoon’s Zak Storm.

Website⎮Twitter

Narrator Bio

Alexander Cendese is a New York–based actor/narrator whose credits include roles on and Off-Broadway, in films, and on popular television shows, including Law & Order: SVU and All My Children. He holds a BFA from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama.

Twitter

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Louise Cypress. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

I really enjoyed this installment. Cypress keeps you hooked into the story from the very beginning. Once again, the narrators did a phenomenal job bringing this story to life. I really appreciate how Cendese voiced Lex, I could not stop laughing at the “orange faced” vamp whenever he spoke. I wont give away any spoilers or synopsis since one has already been provided.

I was happy to get Cassandra’s POV. I liked how her and Kyle were perfect together and how they made each other grow. It was great to see Cassandra’s character grow, especially after her childishness of Bite Me and Hunt Me. At first, it was a little much, but, the accuracy of a homeschooler attending high school for the first time was astonishing. I had a friend that was homeschooled and sometimes the naivety was overwhelming, but it was because certain experiences were lacked and they could only base concepts from tv shows. Which Cassandra also does in her expectations of what her first day of high school would be like.

I think, of the three books in this series, Slay Me is my favorite. I have really enjoyed listening to this series, and I hope you do to!

Top 10 List

Top Ten Reasons to be an Audiobook Listener

Voice actors make scenes come to life in new ways.
You love hearing accents spoken aloud.
Audiobooks are cheaper than Broadway tickets.
Road-trips are always more fun with a good book to listen to.
Audiobooks make great workout buddies.
Washing the dishes in silence is boring.
That basket of laundry won’t fold itself.
You’ve run out of space on your bookshelf for more hardbacks.
You love bossing Alexa around. “Alexa, read my book to me!”
Up to one in five people have a language-based learning challenge like dyslexia and ear-reading is just as valid as eye-reading.

Guest Post

The Inspiration Behind SLAY ME’s Hilarious Taxidermy-Battle Scene

By Louise Cypress

Did you ever go to summer camp? I’m a lifelong Girl Scout, and when I was in college, I worked at Camp Joe Sherman in Southern California as the nature director. This meant that I was in charge of Camp Sherman’s nature museum and extensive taxidermy collection.

“Eeeww! Gross!” you might be thinking. “Those poor, defenseless creatures!”

Yup. I 100% agree with you.

Girl Scouts aren’t normally known for taxidermy—I’d like to make that clear, but Camp Sherman was an exception. The original property was owned by a guy named Joe Sherman who traveled the world hunting animals, some of which are now endangered. Meanwhile, his wife would collect rocks. All of the animals are stuffed and displayed in the living room of their old house, and the rocks are built into the fireplace.

I understand why the Girl Scouts kept the taxidermy collection on display. They weren’t the ones who killed the animals, and the animals were already dead. But still…. [shudder.]

When you spend an impressionable summer in your 20s as curator to a taxidermy collection, it does weird things to your psyche. That’s why when I wrote SLAY. ME I made Kyle, my vampire bad-boy, a vegan. I’m not vegan myself, but I definitely oppose animal cruelty.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the end of SLAY ME features an epic taxidermy battle that had me laughing so hard that I could hardly write it. All of those summers at Girl Scout camp got processed into fiction. I took the icky and I made it funny.

I’ll just add it to the list of all the ways Girl Scouts has made a difference in life.

Giveaway