Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: That Irresistible Poison
SERIES: Calluvia’s Royalty Book 2
AUTHOR: Alessandra Hazard
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 311 Pages
RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2018
BLURB:
“I hate you.” Please touch me.
“You sicken me.” Hold me closer.
“I want to be free of you.” I can’t live without you.
The messed up part is he means everything he says.
The youngest prince of his clan, Seyn has been betrothed to the crown prince of another clan since birth. Everyone says he’s so lucky to marry one of the most respected, powerful men on the planet, but Seyn knows better.
He hates him with every fiber of his being. Ksar is a cold, uncaring, overbearing bastard who uses underhanded tactics to achieve his goals and who either ignores Seyn or criticizes everything about him. Seyn can’t stand him, and he’s willing to do anything to get out of the arranged marriage to a man he abhors.
But the line between feverish hatred and passion can be very thin, and it turns out that freedom isn’t as appealing as it once seemed.
Is it messed up to miss a man you loathe?
Is it sick to want his hands on you?
Seyn knows it’s insane. He knows he should stop going back.
But knowing something and doing it are two different things.
REVIEW:
I’ve been reading Alessandra Hazard’s books since I stumbled on the first of her Straight Guys series a few years ago. I’ve read every book as they came out and enjoyed every one of them. Then came her sudden turn from straight guys to aliens in That Alien Feeling. I loved the character of Harry and how naïve he was, or rather how naïve he appeared since he was actually an alien banished to Earth as a punishment by his telepathic parents. It was a cute and fun story. I was really happy to see a follow up.
In That Irresistible Poison we’re brought back to the Planet Calluvia, but this time from the viewpoint of Harry’s best friend Seyn who we met in book one. In book one, we met Seyn when he helped Harry get back to Earth to the young human Harry had fallen in love with while he was banished, and events unfolded from there. The only thing I didn’t like about the beginning of this new book was that there was a lot of cut and paste between the two books. I re-read the first book right before I read this one and entire passages were identical. Many people probably wouldn’t even notice, but they stuck out to me.
Grumbling aside, let’s talk about the new story. I really enjoyed getting to know Seyn, as well as his bonded partner, Harry’s brother Ksar. On the planet Calluvia all children are bonded to another child early in their life, which we learn is to control the limits of their telepathic abilities. In an attempt to save Ksar’s life when his bonded died, Seyn was bonded to Ksar even though Seyn was a baby and Ksar was something like 9 or 10. Because of the oddity of the timing, the bond never took well, and Seyn has been looked down on his entire life by Ksar. But there is more to the story than he or we know at that point.
I liked the story. There were a few little things which stood out as culturally ‘odd’, for example Seyn feeling like he had just run a marathon. Pretty sure alien planets wouldn’t have a race run on Earth, but those minor things aside, I enjoyed the pace and the tension between the characters. The ending was fairly predictable, as I knew it would be going in. Ms. Hazard pretty much always gives a happy ending.
I’d recommend this to anyone who likes a romance, with enemies to lovers, and very human aliens. I’m looking forward to Seyn’s brother’s story which will be the next one in this series. One final note…the original cover of book one was a cutesy aliens type cover. I liked it way better than the new replacement cover and the cover on this one. Neither one says ‘aliens’ to me.
RATING: 
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