A Novel with Thoughts and Ponderings

DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE

Author: Tracey O'Hara ISBN: 9780061783142 2/2011 URBAN FANTASY/PARANORMAL Publisher: HARPER VOYAGER

Death's Sweet Embrace by Tracey O'Hara
After centuries of secret conflict, humans and parahumans have reached an uneasy truce. But unspeakable evil now threatens the tenuous peace.

Teenaged shapeshifters are being slaughtered by a sadistic serial killer who rips their still-beating hearts from their paralyzed bodies. A task force forms to halt the madness, including the vampiric Aeternus Antoinette Petrescu, as well as Kitt Jordan and Raven Matokwe, members of enemy Animalian tribes . . . and forbidden lovers.

A centuries-old blood feud has divided their shapeshifting peoples, and if their passion is discovered it will doom them both. But past hostilities must be put aside, for the killer they seek is but the first sign of the all-consuming nightmare of The Dark Brethren.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE is pretty graphic, more graphic than I like to read about anyway. If your imagination is anything like mine, meaning watching horror movies is not half as gross as imagining such things, you probably should brace yourself before reading this one.

Confusion and chaos reign in DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE. While the author writes with clarity, there are so many different players and scenes twisting upon themselves, at times I think I am watching a series like Falcon Crest for shape-shifters, instead of reading a book. I understand what is happening in the story, but the characters have obviously met before and have some insider secret I don't. Yes, O'Hara gives bits and pieces of the hero and heroine's previous life together, but it isn't enough to stop the disjointed feel I get from the story. I still don't quite get why they gave up their children, but perhaps I am not supposed to.

With a twist at the end sure to shock and confuse, DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE is a thriller to be sure. It is also an unusual and macabre tale, with a small romance and family element that keep it from being completely horrifying.

Shannon Johnson

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