Amelia Elias: Chosen

Chosen by Amelia Elias
From: Samhain

I bought all three of these dang books from Samhain yesterday Amelia Elias and read them through the night. I wanted you to know that in case I seem a wee bit cranky and maybe even exhausted as I sit here attempting to review them in the middle of my work day nightmare. But I will dang it!

So let’s get right to the latest one from Samhain…

Chosen, the third book in The Guardians’ League series, takes us to New Orleans and introduces us to Gareth Ambrocio, Patriarch of the Arachnid Clan (Meat Packers Local #666) and Alexa London an ICU nurse and part time dhampyr. Alexa does a body shot off our bad boy Patriarch at the Bourbon Street Vamp watering hole and sparks fly. Well sparks and a roving gang of Outcasts and some religious fanatics called Templars and then Eli and Renee show up on their honeymoon. Well, if you can’t tell it gets a bit complicated.

The fun part is Alexa not buying the poor home boy Gareth’s story about being a Vampire, until she gets attacked that is. Those bad, evil, nasty, Outcasts! But love conquers all, even the rare elusive dhampyr it seems.

This book just seemed to breeze by with no outrageous mistakes to cut short my enjoyment, not like book two of The Guardians’ League was… but we will talk about Outcast in good time.

All in all, I loved Chosen. It’s not a short story (280 pages) but I finished this thing in like maybe 4 hours and I rushed off in search of the rest the series. Chosen is fast paced, tightly plotted, hot and sexy in all the good Vampire ways and best of all the world they inhabit is dark and scary, and has a logic that makes sense. I am totally on Alexa’s side about the whole “Dame Matron” deal. That’s not a rank or title, that’s a punch line.

I will say that it is evident that the next book is probably going to be around Jenyssa aka Nyssa and Ronin which should be interesting seeing as how Ronin has not done much in the series but grunt and kill things so far. Oh, and he shed that single tear over the baby. The big manly grunting softy.

So I just had to go pick up the first book in the series to find out what I missed…

Hunted is the first book of The Guardians’ League series. We start off in beautiful San Francisco although we do not see much of my fair city. Why do people bother writing about this town without showing it off. I mean even Anne Rice shorted us with the Vampire in San Francisco writing thingy, now she’s writing “Jesus stories” so that should tell you something right there. The point is, I know more about what New Orleans looks like than I do San Francisco and we are a pretty place. Just do not breath in through your nose while down town and you’ll think we are the fairest jewel of all US tourist traps. Urine Town! Boo-Yah!

Anyway, here we meet Diego Leonides Patriarch of The Panther Clan, and former prince of Spain, and Sian Lazuro, bad driver, former cop and full time mob target. Sian runs into Diego with her Mini Cooper and almost does herself in as well. Diego, the studly Vampire hero he is, helps her get it back together only to have Eli (His big boss man Head Vampire) catch him in bed with her. Eli works a whammy and next thing you know they are “bondmates” with matching arm tats. I thought that was a very expensive and yet considerate wedding gift for the new couple but Diego did not seem all that thrilled in the least.
Sucker! Heh, Get it? Vampire… sucker… *sigh*

Sian is not too happy either, since she trusts no one first and asks questions later. Not since dear old dad got the bullet meant for her. Oops, sorry. I hate spoiling all that angst. So, she fights with Diego “the sexy” in a continual verbal battle that gets a little forced near the end of the book. I mean after the first big sex scene she should have tuned it down a little bit there but then we find out she’s a dhampyr so maybe that was the problem. Maybe she’s upset that dhampyr’s are not as rare and elusive as they are made out to be? Maybe she needs to feel special?

It was after Hunted that Eli started to get to me. I liked him. He was dark and mysterious and all powerful and a hoot. He came across as a very well written secondary character in both these books and the best part was after reading both the third and first books in the series I realized Amelia had done the impossible and had not made these stories dependent on each other. I figured it out by watching the secondary characters interact. You could pick up either of these books and read only one and feel you had gotten the whole story even with the underlying running interplay between the characters. Amelia never relies on past story lines or those “remember when” moments at any time so you could read Hunted or simply buy Chosen, the new book, and enjoy, it does not matter and that my friends is pure writing talent. Thanks Amelia!

Now the bad side of this review… on to Outcast.

Oh my my my!

Have you ever read a book, liked it, but about halfway through started to get a sinking feeling when the writer began to color in the hero and the back story sucked?

Sorry Amelia, I got that horrible feeling here in Outcast the second book of The Guardians’ League series. I mean, I already loved Eli. He was tall, very dark “character wise”, handsome, a wild card that came and went any way he pleased and was far far more powerful than any of the Vampires you introduced us to and far far more knowledgeable. In fact so much so the others stood in awe of Eli.

I liked him already. You did not have to do a dang thing to make him better. Then you wrote this book about him and his romance with Renee Hardin whom Eli watches get attacked and turned into a Vampire by the evil, nasty, vicious, Outcasts. Eli is guilt ridden with ages of issues and baggage beyond belief. The whole “sire” thing was a smart move. Even making Eli “THE OLDEST” Vampire was pretty much in keeping with what you had already written and more than one of your other main characters has suspected as much. That was logical, really, believable too.

But the whole Eli “God Thing”! The whole Eli “Greek God Thing”! Oh my my my my…

Nope, that explanation just fell flat. It was dead in the water from the get go. Greek Mythology is rife with Disney-fication amongst other things. It is not as dark or mysterious as say Egyptian Mythology (Eh no, Anne Rice did that one already. Sorry, but the great thing is she will never write another page and a half description of a room with an open window again. Woohoo!) or hell, Sumerian Mythology. Yeah, next time try Sumerian Mythology. Or just write your own, this is fiction you know. The other problem was Eli became way too powerful. The balance got lost with the modern day story setting and the whole story fell over.

Eli would have been the perfect “imperfect god”. He could have been the first Vampire and not really known why he was created or how and the story could have taken an even darker and more realistic turn with the lack of answers. He could even have created that bad Vampire and felt all that guilt without once saying one word about any Greek Gods. I have this thing about “SHOW ME” do not “TELL ME” in writing. Well, the big thing was there was a lot of telling. This happened with Diego in the first book too, but not as bad. Both these books could have used a prologue that showed the heros way back when they first started and it would have had more impact and lessened the need to recount everything about their past.

The best part of this series again is that anyone could read the first book and the third book and skip Outcast and have a great time reading some good Vampire stories. I would so dump Outcast and set it aside for re-write in a New York minute. I felt like the last part dragged me so far down, jeez, it sucked. I had just breezed through the last two books with no problems, then this fine mess.

Amelia you are a damn good writer (Not surprising since you are published by Samhain) and not many people, even those writers presented to us continually in romance as “the best”, can write a series of books that work individually as well as together. You have done this and done it very very well. I respect your writing talent and thank you for some really good Vampire Romance stories. I really want to give this whole series an overall A for consistency but not in it’s current shape.

Till then, my only request Amelia Elias is… Where is the Gay Vampire Patriarch and can two men be “bondmates”? Now that would be hot and sexy in your more than capable writing hands.

Grade B for Chosen, Grade B for Hunted, Outcast? What Outcast?

Tags: Amelia Elias, Grade B, Samhain Publishing, Straight, Vampire Romance