Review : His Consort by Mary Calmes

 

His Consort is a mm paranormal romance about a seemingly normal guy who meets vampires and finds out he is more special than anyone ever thought. It is book 1 in the House of Maedoc series, followed by book 2, His Prince.

Jason Thorpe is at loose ends since he left the military. Cabinetry is an occupation, but it isn't his everything, just something to do. He's just a simple, rather plain guy, who is a bit lonely since he's gotten older and has no one that he belongs with. When a friend wills him a shop and apartment in New Orleans Jason is questioning whether he should move there and start a new life. Then an encounter changes his life.

While staying at a small cabin on the property of rich and strange people who want him to build some bookshelves, Jason hears screams in the night. He grabs his gun and races through the snow to find that the strange people who live on the property have captured and attacked a young man. Unable to understand what is going on, he dismisses his questions until later and gets the young man loose to rush him to the hospital.

Jason doesn't know that he saved Tiago, the rajan or ambassador of the vampyr prince. He is rather charmingly completely unaware.

“Jason, I am as healed by your proximity as I have ever been by blood, and all I want now is to taste of you so I might know if you are human, as I suspect, or something else altogether.”

“I’m as human as you are, buddy.”

He laughed again, more shrill this time, and I was certain he was actually deep in shock. 

“Are you still cold?” I asked, pulling off the highway again, then taking off my coat once I’d put the truck into Park.

“No, I am not cold at all! Why on Earth would I be cold?”

But he had to be. I was, and he was tiny, with zero body fat. He had no natural insulation at all, and the karate gi thing wasn’t doing anything for him. His hands, when he touched me, were still icy. I had the heater going full blast, but apparently it wasn’t enough to warm him up. “Here, I wanna put this over you, all right?”

“Absolutely not. I have no need for your off-the-rack outerwear,” he protested, face scrunched up like he’d bitten into a lemon. “What is the origin of this garment?”

“It’s pleated corduroy, and would you just—here, lemme tuck it around you.”

“I am not—I cannot be observed in this jacket! I only wear couture and… I would be the laughingstock of court should anyone see me!”

“I’m not gonna take a picture of you in it. I just want you to stay warm and—no, not halfway down your chest, put it up under your chin,” I directed, using my coat to wrap him up like a burrito. “Now you just rest, all right? We’ll be there soon.”

“You are the most infuriating man! You are not listening to me at all,” he grumbled, pouting, the epitome of a pissed-off kitten. He really couldn’t have been any cuter. “I have slaughtered thousands.”

“I’m sure you have,” I said, brushing the golden waves of his hair out of his face before pulling the truck back out onto the road.

He growled, and I couldn’t stifle my chuckle.

“For your information, the reason they bled me was because they feared me.”

“Of course they did.”

“You placate me, and I will not have it!”

There's something niggling Jason about the entire episode, but he refuses to think about it. It must just be some cult or something. But after the vampyr prince's ambassador is safely passed on to the prince's guards, Jason decides it's definitely time to start over in New Orleans.

New Orleans is a revelation to Jason. He makes friends and new family, he starts up a store with his new best friend, and he feels like he's finally content. He pointedly doesn't think about his mysterious night in snowy Washington, but weird people who visit his store one night bring it all back and this time there's no hiding from the reality. Vampyrs are real. And Jason has some strange, yet subtle powers over them.

Learning more about the vampire world and having it become part of his day seems natural, and Jason simply slots it into his new life. But then word comes that the vampyr prince, Varic Maesoc, has come to visit the city and Jason's new normal is turned to chaos once again.

Strangely attracted to Varic, Jason doesn't know what to think, but with danger coming from every side he doesn't have time to dwell on the stunningly beautiful man who seems to want to get to know him.

But what a vampyr prince wants, he gets, and Varic wants Jason. Now he just has to convince Jason that all the danger is worth becoming his beloved consort.

House of Maedoc book 2, His Prince, takes over where book 1 leaves off and Jason learns what it means to be the consort of the most powerful prince in the world as they visit the vampyr court in Malta.

The House of Maedoc series is classic Mary Calmes with likable characters, interesting mindsets, and sweet moments. It differs a bit from stories like Frog as it is much longer, more in depth, and quite a bit darker (yet still retains that inherent sweetness). If you like Mary Calmes' other books, you'll probably like this one too even with the darker subject matter. It's one of my favorites of hers and I occasionally recall it in day to day life as it sticks with you.

Don't go into His Consort expecting sex on the first page. We don't even meet the vampire prince until halfway through. And even after they meet, Jason is hesitant to jump into anything because he doesn't understand Varic's feelings. But when they do come together it is fairly fast.

“I’m Varic Maedoc, the draugr, prince of the noreia. Who are you?”

I had a name, but it was stuck on the tip of my tongue.

“You’re not a vampyr,” he concluded, studying me. “I can smell your blood.”

“No, not a vampyr,” I agreed, barely able to speak, wanting so badly to lean into him that my muscles hurt.

“You smell so good,” he whispered. When his lips touched my neck, and then his teeth, I shuddered under his hands, a flush of heat rolling through me. “I want to taste you. Give me permission.”

I had thought I would never allow any vampyr to have my blood, but now I couldn’t remember anything I ever wanted more. He could have all of me, if that was what he wanted. Everything was his for the taking. “Yes, good, you have all the permission.”

His chuckle was filthy, seductive, and so fucking hot. He pressed against me, his cock hard inside his dress pants, and the urge to be under him overwhelmed me.

I would beg, if need be.

“Give me your name,” he murmured, no bite to the words, just a request.

“Jason Thorpe,” I answered breathlessly, and recognition and surprise flickered across his face. “You asked to see me.”

“Jason—” His voice faltered, then he inhaled and began again. “Yes, I did, and now I need to do so much more than merely see you,” he declared, slipping his hand around the side of my neck, easing me forward.

Just because sex doesn't happen right away doesn't mean the book is slow in other regards. There is a lot happening throughout, including quite a bit of learning about the vampire world and how it runs.

The world setting is equal parts great and obnoxious. I really like a well-thought out world, and this one fits perfectly into ours, adding to that secret underworld feel. There is quite a bit of background put into it and it makes for a very good, cohesive setting.

I'm not a huge fan of jargon though, and there are several titles that it's important to learn to understand the story better. The writer tries to make it simple with some slightly strange moments where Jason is learning from the vampires, but the words are too different to make them easy to recall and it's bothersome to try to remember which each one means. Making an effort in learning them is important for readability, and rereads go easier since the words are more familiar. But it just seems unnecessary.

The real life parts of the setting are really good too. New Orleans comes alive in the story, with the friendly people, interesting attitudes, and at home yet differing feeling of the city. It's almost like a character in and of itself.

Since this is a Mary Calmes story, it should surprise no one that Jason is a modest and sweet, incredibly likeable, friendly character. Likeable characters are one of my favorite parts of this writer's stories since who wants to read about someone awful? Most of the background characters are pretty likeable as well. Varic is a little too glossed over and his behavior is generally decent, but sometimes kinda jerky. We get to know Jason far more as it's from his POV.

There's a lot of drama in both of these books. They are primarily action and drama with scattered interflection and romance parts. I like the pacing, though it isn't consistently. It starts slow, then speeds up with people trying to kill one another, then slows back down. Then it does it again and again. It's like a good roller-coaster.

His Consort if fairly long, but one of those books that it's still not long enough because it is so engaging. When the sequel came out, His Prince, I was very happy to read more of the story. Hopefully there will be more books in the series.

The editing and proofreading was lacking quite a bit in the book. Running spellcheck doesn't find out if it's the right word to use for that situation, and sometimes it was easy to get a little lost trying to read certain sections of the story.

But other than a few quibbles, both books in the series are really good and filled with heart-pounding action. The little bits of silly and romance interspersed with so much going on really work. These books are both in my reread pile as they're ones I will come back to again and again. And since they are available in paperback, I might just pick up some paper copies as well to really enjoy the stories fully.

Review : Something Magic by Justine Taylor

For most of his life Caleb has dreamed of a wolf. A big, black wolf with red eyes who meets him in a meadow. Caleb can never move in his dreams of the wolf. He is held in place and can only try again and again to get to the black beast. Caleb feels more alive in his dreams than in his real life. He feels like he is where he belongs. But years pass, the dream coming randomly, only changing once when Caleb is younger, the wolf howling out in grief and no matter how much Caleb tried, he could not get to the wolf to comfort him. Young Caleb was so upset over that dream that his parents held him out of school for the day and he went to work with his father, the sheriff. It was there that Caleb saw the boy.

A glimpse is all Caleb gets when the boy and his twin sister are led into the sheriff's office by Caleb's own mother, an english teacher at the high school. Before Caleb is chased away from the scene he hears that the twins' family have all been killed. A decade will pass before Caleb sees the boy again. Distracted by his own mother getting sick and dying, then Caleb figuring out he is gay, then going to college, and finally getting a job in Seattle, Caleb has all but forgotten the scene he barely glimpsed when he was young.

But his dreams of the wolf still remain. They happen less than they did, but he is still left feeling like he should know what it means, he should know the wolf. One morning he wakes from the dream once again, feeling a need to bridge the connection between the two of them and acknowledge how much the wolf means to him. So, he does his best to draw out the wolf, his thick, black fur, his shining red eyes, then he finds the best tattoo shop in town and heads there with his art.

Triskele Tattoo seems staffed solely with stunningly gorgeous people when he arrives. Each have a certain something that catches the attention, and while they seem a little different he finds that he likes them and ponders whether he can be friends with an entire tattoo studio. He hands over his artwork to a real artist who seems a bit surprised by the image. She redraws it, capturing the essence of the wolf even more, then inks it on his skin, all the while getting to know Caleb and chatting about the tattoo artist who isn't there, a seemingly grumpy guy named Mack.

One month later Caleb goes to the tattoo shop for a touch-up and runs into the mysterious artist himself. Caleb finds himself drawn to the man, and while Mack seems a bit stern and is hard to read, he seems like he might be interested too.

Something Magic is a really good story with a simplistic plotline, but it is one of those that don't need to be convoluted. Split up by the murder of Mack's family, Caleb and Mack are reunited a thousand miles away from where they started, drawn together by their shared dreams. Dreams that Mack knows mean that the two are soul mates because that is what happens when a werewolf shares his dreams with another. Mack must explain to Caleb about wolf shifters and what the dreams mean, but first Caleb has to admit they share a hometown and small amount of history.

Caleb and Mack are perfect together. I really like the couple. Mack is a little gruff, while Caleb is at turns shy and flirty. Where one is unsure, the other is there to back him up. They just fit. They're both a little hipster; Caleb likes slouchy beanies and graphic tees, Mack is a Seattle tattoo artist sporting a bit of scruff. They like sitting around and smoking pot while discussing literature and offbeat music. And they have a lot of chemistry.

The pot smoking is a bit overboard. Caleb is a bit of a stoner and since pot affects werewolves while alcohol doesn't, Mack tends to smoke often too. Then again, it's set in the Pacific Northwest.

The book has a lot of pot and / or sex scenes, probably about half the book. The sex scenes are good and hot. The boys are both versatile unlike many shifter novels, so they tend to alternate a lot. There's some knotty heat going on as well once Mack confesses his werewolf nature and is able to top Caleb. I'm not usually a fan of sex scenes interrupting the story of a book, but the sex in this book is better than average.

It's kind of funny as another book I recently read and reviewed: The Other Half by Jess Whitecroft, is very similar in some ways. That book features the male of a male / female set of twins getting together with a small guy and spending a huge portion of the book hooking up and smoking pot. A bit of a strange coincidence to end up reading them back to back.

The flow of the story is fairly decent. We get a little insight into Caleb before he literally runs into Mack. Then there is the slow, getting together, followed by almost instant coupledom, and eventually the dramatic ending scenes that tie up loose ends. The ending works, but just try to not get nitpicky over it as logic applied will probably make it fall to pieces. It's a good scene, just missing some details that would make it make more sense and filling in holes. And it's a little abrupt and too quickly over and dealt with. Like I said, just read it and don't think about it and it's good.

In Something Magic the shifter world is somewhat like more modern shifters tend to be with a bit of old-fashioned werewolf style too. Humans don't know about werewolves. Werewolves are born, but can change people with their bites. They are not forced to shift on the full moon only, they can shift at any time but feel the urge to do so more when the moon is full. Alphas and a few others can knot their mates. They are hunted by werewolf hunters who sometimes only kill bad werewolves, but others kill every werewolf they can find.

It is a well-thought out world, which isn't a coincidence as this is actually Teen Wolf fanfiction. I like fanfiction and often find the writers better than many commercial writers. But...it's a little disingenuous to present something as an original work when the ideas belong to someone else. Using someone else's world as a starting point is fine, just give credit where credit is due. And the writer accidentally even left one of the characters names in, so it's pretty obvious to those who have watched Teen Wolf.

The writer captured a lot of good imagery in this story, from the tattoo shop to a boat trip that turns out pretty beautiful. Characters aren't described a ton, but enough to get a good idea for the main ones. It definitely feels like a fill-in your own ideas kind of book instead of the author telling you exactly what everything looks like, but that might be because of its origins of being based on something most people would know what the characters look like. For a good grasp on the setting it can be helpful to look up a few images to get a better grasp on the location. Many of the images associated with Seattle are easy to find.

A Triskele Tattoo


Looking for YA werewolf books at Elliot Bay Bookstore


Evening falls as the Seattle Ferry passes in front of Mount Rainier on its return from Bainbridge Island.


Where the book really takes a hit is the editing. Some misspelt words are easy to pass off, but others catch your attention more. And there are some major issues with the timeline. The wolf howling in grief in Caleb's dream supposedly does so at night while he is 12. But why would the wolf be howling the night before anything happened? And Caleb's age changes a lot in various parts of the book when he's talking about what happened to him and when. Major errors. Stop and page back to make sure you aren't remembering wrong sorts of things. The author really needs to grab a couple friends and make them read their books before putting them out.

Luckily, the story is good enough that the errors are just frustrating, not bad enough to stop reading. The plot and style make up for a lot. And of course most readers are willing to forgive a lot for some knotty heat.