Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Deep Deception 
SERIES: Deep #2
AUTHOR: Z.A. Maxfield
PUBLISHER: Samhain Publishing
LENGTH: 235 pages
BLURB:
He’ll give up everything for his immortal lover…except his humanity.
Leave a note and slip away to Paris alone, Adin thought. It’ll prove to his vampire lover he doesn’t need 24/7 supervision, Adin thought. Instead, Adin lands in a surreal situation that isn’t going to endear him to Donte. At. All.
As he awaits an old foe, Ned Harwiche III, for a prearranged meeting, Adin is head butted, tossed into the back of a car…then gets the chance to acquire an artifact Harwiche had been bidding on.
Adin jumps at it, if only as payback for all the dirty tricks Harwiche has pulled over the years. To his horror, the “artifact” turns out to be an adolescent boy named Bran.
Sickened, Adin vows to help the boy out, but like Donte—like a lot of the world Adin never knew existed—Bran isn’t at all what he seems to be.
While Donte and Adin negotiate the meaning of the word “forever”, Bran is running out of time. Especially when tragedy and betrayal pit Adin’s long-cherished beliefs against Donte’s love.
Product Warnings: Contains a gothed-up college professor armed with guyliner (which is a big problem when you’re up against a little monster) and an old vampire who doesn’t like his lover out of reach. Not that he can’t administer discipline from afar…
REVIEW:
I love Adin and Donte so much! I read the first incarnation of the book before this one in 2009, it was one of my very early m/m books. This one came out a year or so later. They were originally called Notturno and Vigil. They have now been re-edited, re-named, and re-released. I saw this one come up on our list for reviewing and jumped at it. I loved them the first time so was happy to read this one again. I did read the updated version of Deep Desire right before I read Deep Deception. I honestly can’t tell you how different they are from the originals, I just know that I loved them the first time.
Here’s a quick recap of who these guys are: Donte (Dohn-tey, not Dan-tey!)Fedelta is the “Apex of the food chain”, an obnoxious, stuffy, Italian vampire, turned against his will five centuries ago. He had a lover when he was human, Auselmo (oh I hope that is spelled right!!), who was killed by Donte’s bitch of a wife. The same wife then had Donte turned. Donte took his revenge… But he also turned Auselmo’s son, much to his reluctance (He plays a BIG part in both books, harming and helping). So Donte wrote and illustrated an erotic journal during his love affair with Auselmo, which he eventually lost. It has been a big thing in the old documents world, called Notturno, and has been searched for by many. Adin (Ah-din not Ay-din!) Tredeger works for a university in the US searching for and documenting historical documents. He gets a lead on Notturno, buys it, gets hijacked by a dude who fucks him in an airplane bathroom, and thinks he’s stolen the document, but Adin out smarts him! This gets Donte and Adin together. They have quite the adventure, fighting over, losing, and recovering Notturno in the first book, and somehow manage to fall in love. Very much against the will of each of them.
Donte is a cold, frustrating being, thinks he’s above everyone, has no desire for more than blood and fucking, wants no one to ever replace his lover in his heart, and just wants to be left alone to brood. He likes to brood. And threaten people, Adin in particular. Adin is a playboy when we first meet him, having been taught that love is a joke, and no one should be trusted. He is snarky, brilliant, and obnoxious. They get together, apart, together apart, several times over both of these books, at one point the ASSHOLE Donte leaves Adin to die at the hands of his mortal enemy (Santos). He really does. He’s not going to rescue him, and Adin, is GOING to die. But of course he doesn’t through no help of Donte, the shit.
In this book, we start with Adin in Paris on his own, as he’s pissed of at Donte again! He gets pulled into a bad situation by a rival collector, and ends up with a teenage boy. Who is not the least bit human. Big drama, Donte gets sick, Boaz his imp butler helps and hinders, Santos, Auselmo’s son that Donte turned and who was a bad guy in the first book, is a good guy in this story. Plus we get Edward, Adin’s best friend, and Tuan, Edward’s husband, back and involved as well. Bran, the kid causes some problems, Donte causes some problems, Adin causes some problems, Boaz causes some problems…. you get the picture.
With both of these books I have been all over the place emotionally, especially about Donte. I loved him, I hated him, I loved him, I hated him, repeatedly! He’s a shit, then a sweetheart, treats Adin horribly, then shows how much he loves him. It was awesome. Adin is a fabulous snarky character. He absolutely will not take crap from Donte, who refers to himself as the “apex of the food chain” in the first book, and Adin mocks him with this phrase repeatedly. I loved that! Adin is so pragmatic about the whole thing. He’ll live or die, with or without Donte. He isn’t surprised to be abandoned to his fate by Donte, but he also isn’t surprised when Donte comes to his rescue at other times and declares his undying love (HA! See what I did there?).
ZAM has created a fantastic paranormal world with these two books. I’m quite sorry I’m done reading them. I loved both of them equally, there is similar internal drama in both stories, but different external drama. The storyline in Deep Desire was very interesting, the characters were more fleshed out, especially the additional characters. The sex is smoking hot, with lots of biting, which I love. A BIG THING happens at the end of this one, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I wish we could see a bit farther along to see how it is going with Donte and Adin.
If you are a fan of vampire smut, this is a great book. Both of them are. This one is really not a stand alone, I’d really recommend reading both. They are very much worth it. Excellent stories, characters, and writing!
RATING: 
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