Reviewed by Sarina

TITLE: The Beast Without

SERIES: Arcadia Trust #1

AUTHOR: Christian Baines

PUBLISHER: Interactive Publications

LENGTH: 236 pages

RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2013

BLURB:

Reylan is everything a Sydney vampire aspires to be: wealthy, handsome and independent, carefully feeding off companions plucked from the gay bars of Oxford Street. When one of those companions is killed by Jorgas, a hot-headed young werewolf prowling his streets, Reylan reluctantly puts his cherished lifestyle of blood and boys on hold to help a mysterious alliance of supernatural beings track down the beast. It can’t be that hard… not when Jorgas keeps coming after him.

But there’s more to this werewolf than a body count and a bad attitude. As their relationship grows deeper and more twisted, Reylan tastes Jorgas’ blood, reawakening desires the vampire had thought long dead. And what evolves between them may be far more dangerous than some rival predator in the dark…

REVIEW:

This book has been on my to be read list for quite a while now and I’m seriously regretting that I hadn’t read it sooner! From the characters to the setting, I just adored this from start to finish, even when I wanted to knock some heads together along the way. 🙂

Reylan is a 153 year old Blood Shade (for the love of God, don’t call the man a Vampire) that prefers to be left alone and spends his days either sleeping, eating or spending time with his friend, Ross. His attitude is probably his most defining characteristic and he isn’t afraid to snark at anyone at the slightest provocation. Jorgas has his own set of problems, one furrier than the others, and despite his fascination with Reylan he can’t seem to help but throw out bucket loads of attitude to go along with his anger management issues.

Despite how they met and how they keep clashing when together, I loved seeing these two men interact; they both profess to pretty much hate one another and keep throwing out how they’re each going to kill the other one day but, when needed, that all gets put aside to handle bigger problems. (By the end, the death threats were almost coming across as fond to me and I couldn’t help but smirk a little.)  Reyland also went beyond the expected in order to help Jorgas and that spoke to his character more than anything else I’d read about him at that point.  The story itself was entertaining and the pacing was great; I loved all the different elements the author wove together. There are also things that were touched on here that I’m hoping will find their way into the next book. 🙂 Either way, this was a great story with fantastic characters that I’m really looking forward to reading more about.

If you enjoy a good paranormal story or are looking for characters that don’t immediately fall into each other’s arms, I’d really recommend you give this one a look.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Interactive Publications

Amazon