Ash’s review of A Deepest Thread of Black by Finn Marlowe
Erotic Paranormal Romance published by Samhain Publishing 08 Feb 11

I really wanted to love this book. It has more than a few plot lines that I usually enjoy, but there isn’t a single thing I like here.

As soon as the story starts, it feels like I am missing something. Twice I checked online to see if there were previous books. The world is never explained well. It took a while for me to get the difference between shifters and werewolves, and even then it is unclear. It feels like the world building is an afterthought, something to give the characters a reason to hate each other. It’s just plain confusing.

As for the characters, Colton and Killian, I don’t care for either of them. We are told Colton is a big bad werewolf hunter, but my only impression of him is that he is weak. His character never comes together, and he feels like different people, depending on what the scene calls for. He is a character that is written as expected, with no real personality. Killian is almost the same, he just plays the dominant role. The scenes between them are cold and I don’t believe any of the emotions that are supposedly between them.

I’m sorely disappointed in this story. I had to force myself to finish it so I could write this review, and it’s a short story. Sadly, this isn’t an author I plan to read again.

Grade: F

Summary:

The seduction of his enemy is the ultimate hunt…When his mortal enemy, the handsome and deadly Colton Dècarie, shows up on his doorstep asking an unspeakable favor, Killian Frost is cautious—and curious. What could drive a shape-shifter to beg a werewolf for an honorable death in the line of duty—defending humans from soul-stealing Lycans? Moreover, why ask Killian, who has kept his own feet off that dark path?

Colton’s conflicted heart can take no more of the violence that consumes more of his humanity with every hunt. Even now, Killian’s werewolf scent makes him burn with the instinctive urge to shift and destroy. Death would be a mercy, but the price is impossibly simple: one night of submission in Killian’s bed.

Yet as Killian extracts payment in flesh and pleasure, Colton finds himself giving all that’s demanded of him and more, feeling something he hasn’t felt in a long time. Alive. And Killian discovers the hidden cost of sleeping with the enemy. To keep the balance between light and dark, Bella Luna binds his Lycan blood with a quest to unravel a conspiracy threatening all his kind. If he’s brave enough, he’ll discover a love that means more than the power of a dead man’s soul.

Read an excerpt here.