Devour (Signet Eclipse) [Mass Market Paperback]

The Montfort legacy is a deadly one, filled with the horror and death by werewolves. Paul DuJardin hopes to reveal their dark secrets in his upcoming book and Julie Buchanan is the ideal translator. However, the publishing of Paul's book awakens a deep anger in Pierre de Montfort, an anger that only further incites his acts of violence. Will Paul and his werewolf hunting partner, Catherine Marais, be able to stop this werewolf in time? And what will happen with Catherine's attraction to yet another supernatural being, the vampire Ian Morgan?

I had high hopes for DEVOUR. After all, it is billed as a story with both a vampire and a werewolf. Unfortunately, that is exactly where the excitement ended for me with this one. Perhaps part of the problem is the sheer ambitiousness of the novel. Instead of focusing solely on Catherine's issues about having a romantic affair with a vampire or whether Paul could keep Julie safe from Pierre, Melina Morel tried to do both. What follows is a tale completely lacking any passion or emotion, leaving no opportunity for either subplot to shine. In fact, it was difficult for me to truly ascertain which couple was supposed to be the main hero and heroine!

DEVOUR is a book with a great deal of unrealized potential. With a little more focus and more showing rather than telling, DEVOUR could have some true potential as Melina Morel has some clever ideas. Unfortunately, DEVOUR barely held my attention.

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

i do not know if the author was determined to prove the sophistication of her work, but all she provided me with was a passionless and emotionless "romance." By passionless I am not talking about sex, there have been inspirationals and other PG to PG13 romances I have read that had emotion and passion shimmering off the pages. This novel did not even give off a faint glimmer and there was sex or at least the impression of it. The hero and the secondary characters are the only people who I identified with and I have never wanted a hero to leave a heroine alone so much in my life. I truly did not get the feeling that the heroine wanted the hero as any more than a "boy toy." The two professed to love each other, but unlike other romances the reader could not feel it at all. Catherine was perhaps too sophisticated (words I thought I would never write). She belonged in a book about a jaded wife not a romance. Perhaps this book is part of a larger series. If it is the author would be well served by injecting some emotion into Catherine's cold sophistication (one of the victims of the werewolf is dealt with the same way taking away all identification and empathy). I ended up feeling for the werewolf (the bad guy) because at least he and Ian had feelings.

First off let me say I set out hoping to enjoy this book. It has a lovely cover and I was lured in by the words werewolf and vampire on the back. As soon as I curled up in bed and cracked it open I knew it was going to be a struggle.

This is Morel's first paranormal and it shows. From what I was able to find she has written two historical romances under another name, perhaps they were better. What I found disconcerting is that this book not only lacked any passion or intensity when it clearly should have, it started off with one character as if she were the central heroine and then threw the supposedly central heroine in a little later. Even now, just hours after completing the book I couldn't tell you who this book was intended to center on.

The story introduces us to Julie, an American professor, and Paul, a French werewolf hunter moonlighting as author to a book which Julie must translate to English to provoke the last of the Montfort werewolves. What I don't understand is why the werewolf needed to be provoked with a book, or why, if Paul is so fluent in English, he didn't translate it himself. Enter Paul's partner in werewolf hunting, the aristocratic Catherine and her vampire lover, Ian. Now here is where it really gets confusing... Ian is really the main character in Paul's book who supposedly killed his wife when instead it was his jealous cousin who killed his wife and is the father of the Montfort werewolves. Oh yeah, and Ian's also Julie's great-great-grandpa.

Throw in absolutely no world building, no character development beyond a bunch of discussion regarding aristocratic tastes and really badly written plans to catch the werewolf and this book is the stinker of the year. If you like paranormals, stay away from this one. If you like romance, you won't find any here. I try not to be too critical of anyone's writing but when I've seen teenagers write more passionate and well sculpted stories it pains me that a publisher would put this on the shelves and charge money for it. If you really must read it, borrow it from the library or buy it at a garage sale, all you'll lose is the time you waste reading it.