Come to ME [Mass Market Paperback]

I love Lisa Cach's books. The Changeling Bride is one of my top romances,

and many of her other's are fun, favorite reads. I was delighted when I

read she was going to have two books out in two months and that she

was returning to her fairy tale, paranormal style. After having read Come

to Me, I'm not so sure anymore.

The heroine of Come to Me is a sex dream demon, a succubus who

comes to men in their sleep and gives them pleasurable dreams.

Or rarely, nightmares to punish those who have treated the women

in their lives poorly. Samira has done this for over 3000 years and

the pattern almost never changes. Until one night when an incubus,

her male equivalent, asks a favor. He wants her to give a nightmare

to a Prince and break a political alliance with it. With no thought

as to its effect, she does and thereby brings war and terrible

suffering to another kingdom and one of its princes, Nicolae.

This prologue is, let me be honest, quite disturbing to read. I can

see why Cach does this, after all the heroine is a demon and

must be shown to need redeeming, but it's hard to read. Then

for the next third of the book, Samira is a dark creature until

she assumes human form for 30 days. Now all of a sudden,

we get Samira the wannabe cute demonette. Cach inserts

humor here, some of it literally bathroom humor, and tries

to make Samira cuddly and endearingly naive. The change

is stark and it's not easy to switch gears.

Then, during the last third, Samira gets a heart and goes all

care bear, group hug on us. Meanwhile, our hero Nicolae

spends his time searching for revenge by thumbing through

books on demonology and the occult. To do what? we don't

know. He doesn't know. No one knows and the story kind

of drifts. Then comes the "love conquers all" ending. Again

with a cute punch, that while original, doesn't quite match

the dark opening of the story.

Another point is that the book is fairly short, just less than

300 pages so Cach is forced to use the "I will never ______

again!" (love, trust, try) type of characterization and actions to move

her story and characters along. The subtle changes and shading

that I've enjoyed in other books just isn't here. All of which makes

me wish for the type of book I know she's written in the past.

This one was good in parts, OK overall but could have been

much better. C+/B-

Succubus Samira does a favor for her Incubus friend Theron, not knowing the nightmarish chain of events that come of it. Not until she meets Nicolae, a tormented Prince studying the black arts in an attempt to seek revenge on the man who has left his body and soul scarred. Samira is caught and punished, made a powerless human female that must aid Nicolae as well as learn why humans are superior. This is dark fairy tale has just the right touch of light to it and I am eager to read the next entry in the series.

I added Lisa Cach to my list of must-read romance authors by random chance, having run out of new books by my favorite authors. The synopsis intrigued me. (If you like dark heros and sensual love scenes, can you go far wrong with a demon who seduces women in their dreams?)

Not having read Cach before, I was ready to skip some pages if there was too much of what usually bothers me about the paranormal genre: the overly detailed descriptions of paranormal culture, with all the mechanics of how they find their destined life mates, etc. I appreciate the creativity that goes into inventing a paranormal world, but for me it gets in the way of the male-female relationship, as with historical romances that try to teach a history lesson.

Give me the romance of the setting, but don't make me pass a pop quiz on shapeshifter culture or the Napoleonic wars.

Thank you, Lisa Cach, for providing magic instead of a lesson.

This novel and its companion book, "Dream of Me," provide just enough background to make us feel some sympathy for Cach's demons and succubi. They seem so powerful by mortal standards, but they are slaves to higher powers. They court danger when their behavior toward humans deviates from the rule book. They sometimes envy the sunlit world. An understanding of their dilemma gives these characters the necessary vulnerability to make us want them to find love.

Heaven knows, they have plenty of lust in their lives. But no love, unless they risk their immortality.

The sex scenes sizzle, and eventually lead to touching love scenes. I'm delighted with Cach's sense of humor, which had me smiling when I least expected to and even made me laugh out loud a time or two. In a sunless world of unloved demons, touches of humor kept me reading and made me expect to be rewarded in the end.

I've since read The Mermaid of Penperro, which I absolutely loved, and have some of Cach's older novels on order. "Mermaid," like "Come To Me" and "Dream of Me," is essentially a sensual romance with well-developed characters faced caught up in conflicts that can only be resolved when sex accepts love as its other half. There's just enough otherworldly magic to make the ride fun.