Review: A Tender Love Story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 8, 2013
In the year 3478, the Burning War has left Earth - or Terra as it's now known - a devastated, backward world that's lost three-quarters of its population to not only war, but to tsunamis, earthquakes, and a plague that would have entirely wiped out humanity had the Triune Goddess Morrigunia not interceded. Floods and earthquakes have reduced the size of what used to be the United States by half. The people exist now in a futuristic "old west" in which the large cities and their machinery of old lie in ruin. In what had been the vast Midwest, the Southwest, and Southeast, the land has been divided into territories ruled by the High Council of Shadowlords -- three powerful psychics from far beyond the Terran galaxy. Rogue reapers called Balgairs have been turned loose by the alien Ceannus to destroy the humans of Terra. To eradicate them before this happens, the High Council has brought in seven of Morrigunia's Reapers.Reapers are forces to be reckoned with. Tall, black-haired, and inordinately handsome and well-built, these men each possess a symbiotic worm that gives them the strength of 10 normal men. Neither vampire nor werewolf, but a combination of both, they can shapeshift into both a wolf and a bird. Their senses are enhanced, and they have powers to mesmerize and do all manner of magical things. Tough, unsympathetic killers, they'll melt your heart with the loneliness and despair they hide from the world but cannot hide from the women destined to be their mates. Ultimately, they are the final word of law in the Territories, and nothing is more important to them than the protection of their people. Yet the people they've dedicated their lives to protecting fear these solitary blood-drinking Reapers nearly as much as they fear the blood-thirsty Rogues.Flash back to 3473...When Reaper Bevyn Coure walked into the White Horse Saloon in the seedy little town of Orson in the Armistenky Territory, he was looking to do one thing. Get stinking drunk so he couldn't feel either his loneliness and the grief eating away at him over the loss of a close friend. The last thing he expected to find was the one woman who called out to his damaged soul.Lea Walsh was hard at work cleaning tables when the handsome Reaper walked in, swaggering, as if he owned the place, up to the bar and the whiskey bottle the saloon owner automatically placed before him. She could barely keep her eyes off him. Though she feared him, the sight of him stirred her desires. And then his deadly eyes met hers in the mirror over the bar. She watched his lips moved as he asked for her. She wasn't a whore, but even she knew you didn't refuse a Reaper what he wanted. When she followed him upstairs to his room, she knew her life was about to change for the better.What neither knows, however, is that danger tracks Bevyn's every move, and Lea may not have a say in whether or not she'll be able to keep her handsome Reaper once the Amazeen warrioress and Nightwind Penthesilea makes her move.In this tender love story, Charlotte Boyett-Compo once again weaves her marvelous magic to bring together a Reaper and the woman the Goddess has placed in his path. Lea is the one woman destined to assuage Bevyn's loneliness and ease the memories of his haunted past. Her own loneliness calls to Bevyn. Nevertheless, he doesn't want a woman complicating his life. Discarded at birth and raised harshly by priests to enter the priesthood, a woman tortured him and then finally burned him alive because he would not forsake his celibacy and submit to her. Then the Goddess Morrigunia thrust him into a second life of lonely servitude as one of her Reapers. To his way of thinking, Mo Regina is enough to deal with. But Lea is a temptation, one his lonely soul hungers to possess.Initially, Bevyn merely wants Lea as a companion, and although she's willing to give him more, she could definitely be happy with Bev as her protector...just as long as he doesn't make her into what he is. I love that these two spend their first night together just holding each other and filling up the empty holes of each other's loneliness, but Lea's adverse reaction to taking one of Bev's fledgling hellions wasn't a plus for me in her likeable column. But of course it doesn't stand in Bevyn's way of making her his mate. That he doesn't ask her to marry him however is understandable. How can he offer everything to a woman who won't accept every facet of him?Once things heat up between Bev and Lea, these two virgins manage to come up with some imaginative sex play. There's one scene set in a stable that will leave you panting and fanning your face! The secondary characters: Sheriff Buford Gilchrist, Widow Cornelia Jones, Riley the gambler, Lord Kheelan, and others add depth and focus to the story, but there was something missing from this fifth installment to the WesternWind series. Despite being highly emotional, which I always love about a Charlee Compo book, I wasn't satified with the pairing of Bevyn and Lea in Her Reaper's Arms. I just couldn't understand why Lea wanted to be with Bevyn if she found his revanent symbiont so distasteful.While this story is technically a standalone, I recommended you read the WesternWind books in order for better reader enjoyment and understanding. -- This review belongs in its entirety to TwoLips Reviews, LLC.