Review: A beginning with a hopeful future...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 10, 2012
Carmen is a vampire elf. Well, that's about the simplest way to describe what she is, but it doesn't explain who she is. She's a woman with a dark past, caught in a trap not of her making and now she must do whatever is necessary. The reason for that is heartbreaking really and it gives her a soul and a heart that through the course of the story grows in many ways...Carmen is forced to hunt incubi for a wizard, and in doing so she hunts one of the most powerful of all of the incubi, one named Blaze. However, she finds that he knows of her, she cannot fulfill her mission and must go after more dangerous pray.Blaze isn't quite the stereotypical incubus. While he is strong, powerful, and erotic, every bit as much as Carmen is, he isn't what you would define as evil. He is proud yes, but he has a soul, honour, and most of all, he has emotion in him. That's important in the overall story as there are moments where a stereotypical incubus would be uncouth or uninteresting to me personally.He never was that in any way really. His actions over Carmen were heart felt and touching, the need within him for her and, eventually, returned by her, made for a tragic pair in a story that deals with the pain that life can bring.I was a bit disappointed Blaze not having a tail or horns for that matter. Still in spite of that, he is seductive as any good incubus should be. I did find it surprising that one of his weaknesses, and it might be his only one, is something that seemed to be Carmen's one and only specific ability, which I will not spoil for the delicious irony of it all...Overall, it was an excellent story, the author does well with settings, characters, and emotions. I did notice a couple of word errors, but only two of them and that's really quite good considering. I never felt like I was being drawn out of the story at any time, I have to admit that I stayed up quite late at night to complete it, and that's where my one problem with this work appears.The ending.I hate cliffhangers as endings. I don't mind stories that have the current story end and leave the future open to return to. What gets me is that there is a huge reveal at the end of this story that changes the lives of Carmen and Blaze in a dramatic way, it rocks their lives and world badly and then......then the story suddenly stops.It feels like there should be at least another 40 or 50 pages to the real end of the story, but that doesn't happen. More troubling, at least to me, is that the doors are wide open to continue and yet there isn't any sign of that to come from this author.Now, other things get in the way, I am living proof of that believe me, but darn it all, dropping a huge hint of what is to come, what Blaze and Carmen are thinking at the end, and what has transpired, just is a huge tease and I want to see where this story goes...Because honestly, there is so much more to tell here than has been...I'll give this work four pitchforks out of five.