Review- Fantasy Lover

Sherrilyn Kenyon
Paranormal Romance
337 pages
Dark Hunter Series prequel
Excerpt
St. Martin's Press


Synopsis:
Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn't. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior's day.

As a love-slave, I know everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all, how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander's sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She alone bothered to take me out of the bedroom and into the world. She taught me to love again.

But I wasn't born to know love. I was cursed to walk eternity alone. As an ancient Greek general, I had long ago accepted my sentence. Yet now I have found Grace-- the one thing my wounded heart cannot survive without. Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two-thousand-year-old curse? 


Review:
I am going to be completely honest here, not in a million years would I pick up a book that was titled Fantasy Lover and expect it to be anything more than romantic or erotic fluff; easy story, forgettable but likable characters, little attachment... you get the drift.  But, I've been wanting to get into the Dark Hunter series because so many of my friends include it and it's author Ms Kenyon among their favorites.  So, when I made an announcement that I was diving in, I received a ton of disclaimers "It's not like all the others in the series"  "This one is great, but it's a little gumdrop" and so on.  So maybe it was because of all this that I was so pleasantly surprised. 


Sure, Julian is a love slave who's meant to be the greatest lover a woman can hope for, and sure when Grace kind of accidentally "calls" him she can't bring herself to use him in such a way, and sure that basically changes things for Julian... to be seen as a man for the first time in a thousand years.  Ok, those parts are slightly typical or predictable.  But, what surprised me the most was all the Greek history that's woven throughout the story.  Kenyon really set out to attach you to Julian with his Greek-tragedy-style life.  And me for it completely worked.  Julian's story was original and well designed and surprisingly, I became more attached to the male protagonists than his female counter part... that's new.


At the heart of the book is a slightly chick-lit style plot, but readers will enjoy the fast pace and wont be able to stop themselves from becoming attached.  Kenyon's writing style is smooth and easy to follow.  Its easy to see why so many people flock to her. She also didn't mess up the book will any "fall on your dick" moments, which is what ultimately won my affections. I will definitely be reading more from the series.


3.5 stars