Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: Sapphire
SERIES: Midnight’s Jewels Book 1
AUTHOR: Serenity Snow
PUBLISHER: Evernight Publishing
LENGTH: 129 pages
BLURB:
Sapphire Diamond is on top of the world. She’s the star of a killer collection and has just been promoted to head designer of Red Silk. However, her life is about to be turned upside down by bat shifter traffickers.
Cassia Sol is part macho protector but all vampire bat shifter. The second she catches the scent of her mate, her bat wants to claim Sapphire, but Cassia is unwilling to make that big a leap from strangers to lovers.
As passion turns to affection, Cassia’s mate claims her. That bond ensures the brown bat traffickers will have to fight the Midnight Agency, not just Cassia, to get to Sapphire. Blood ties run soul deep and sisterhood is forever.
REVIEW:
I have read many books in the erotic genre, numerous sub-genres and pairing, but until now, never one with a vampire bat shifter, so when I saw this one I jumped at the chance to expand my reading horizons. I must admit I quipped I might be bat-shit crazy for doing so, however I enjoyed the shifter aspect of the story, more so the action and suspense that went along with it. When populations are at risk, people will do unthinkable things to ensure the survival of their race, including human trafficking. That part of the plot kept me entertained.
With any paranormal story I am more willing to suspend belief, I was able to overlook these characters having the ability to move about during the day, despite to my knowledge, bats and vampires being nocturnal creatures. But what I really struggled to come to terms with, was a female character with a penis and balls, and the ability to impregnate her lover. Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against transsexuals, I’ve read a number of books with trans characters, but this femdom, vampire, bat shifter, is not transsexual.
I quote – “The stamen is like your gem witches,” Cassia told her. “It’s a very well-kept secret. Those who have it don’t go around bragging about it. People tend to think it makes us transsexual or intersex when we’re neither. The stamen is the result of a genetic anomaly.”
So while in another book I probably could have dealt with that, when receiving a same sex book, I don’t expect to have to read sex scenes that read like MF, or I would have selected a MF erotic story. And in a same sex story, I certainly don’t expect the couple to have to use condoms to avoid pregnancy. So the sexy time in this story fell flat for me. There was a spanking scene, and BDSM is one of my favorite erotic sub-genres but in this story the discipline also seemed out of place.
In short, for a book of just over 100 pages I felt it tried to be too much. When I finished the first thing that came to mind was, ‘sometimes less is best’. Maybe this is a common problem in books that are first in a series?
Contains – Vampires, witches, bat-shifters, magickal secrets and spells, a lesbian/domme complete with cock and balls, flogging, bdsm elements.
RATING: 
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