Reviewed by Elizabetta

TITLE: Intercession
AUTHOR: Pepper Espinoza
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 206 pages/61,584 words
BLURB: After fifty years of searching for his lost brother, vampire David Derringer attempts the unimaginable: he bends his knee in prayer. While he doesn’t believe, his mother’s faith was strong, and her final request—a request made the night she and David died—keeps David on the path to his younger brother, Danny, despite the many obstacles.

David doesn’t expect his prayer to be answered. He certainly doesn’t expect an angel to intercede on his behalf.

Jophiel is tasked not only with helping David find his brother but with saving David’s soul. It seems like an impossible assignment meant to punish him, especially when they must face the Brotherhood of St. Rocco, an organization dedicated to eradicating vampires.

But David has a chance to prove he’s not like other vampires when he meets Arthur, a young man with a secret and a death wish. Following a very steamy encounter, Arthur expects to be bitten. David never even drops his fangs. Which is a good thing, since Arthur might be the key to finding Danny before it’s too late.

REVIEW:

The blurb really whetted my appetite… ingredients for an interesting recipe:

take one Vamp with some shred of humanity left in him

add one ex-archangel seeking his own redemption

stir in one human with a death wish

Mix well into a hot PNR menage romance. Right?

David, on the run from gangs of vampire hunters, stops to send up a prayer in a church. It’s the last place you’d find a vampire, but he begs God for an intercession. He asks for help in fulfilling his dying mother’s last wish, to find his younger brother. This gets some notice in Heaven, and Jophiel is assigned to helping David. But when he discovers a small light glimmering in David, Jophiel’s task becomes another intercession, the saving of a soul. Arthur’s involvement, why he, a weak human, would knowingly hook up with a vampire (and thumb his nose at death), is crucial to the story and related to David’s quest. Arthur has secrets of his own.

So, the set-up gets extra points but there were some things I just wasn’t feeling. The interaction between David and Jophiel wasn’t remarkable. Don’t get me wrong, I liked David, he added humor with his flippant wise-cracking, But it felt like this detracted from that heavier darkness I wanted to feel in his story— the darker he was, the greater his redemption would be. And I got Jophiel’s turmoil, that he didn’t fit into heaven and its politics; yet he desperately wanted to prove his angel value. His investment in helping David— the redemption of his remaining humanity from vampiferocity— added to his character. But them together as a couple? Not so much. It really wasn’t until the ultimate sex scene between all three guys, sensual and inventive, that things finally started cooking. Arthur’s acting as a conduit between David and Jophiel was cool, and hot. A sexual mediation and a high point of this thing. But was this enough?

The scenes in heaven distracted and the religious expounding became annoying— and these were a large part of the story. I need careful handling of any religious subtext to avoid preachiness and while it didn’t quite get there, it was too much for me. The vamp hunting monks could have been interesting in their twisted righteousness but they became caricatures and I couldn’t take them seriously. In the end, the recipe for deliciousness just didn’t mix well.

And the ending? A big HFN, that’s ‘holding’ not ‘happy’ for now; a sequel seems to be in the offing. This was not indicated in the blurb and I don’t think it’s spoilering to mention it here… a big no-no, homey don’t play me that way.

Elizabetta’s Rating:

BUY LINK: Dreamspinner Press :: All Romance eBooks

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Elizabetta is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

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