Review: Anne Marsh - Bond With Me

Fallen Series:

Book 1:

Bond With Me: Brends Duranov and Mischka Baran

Summary:

From Goodreads.com
 “Fallen angels… They rule Moscow’s seedy underworld, promising untold pleasure to the females who dare to mate them. That promise – and Brends Duranov’s own raw sexual power – has hopefuls mobbing the velvet rope outside his elite club G2’s.
 But Mischka Baran has no intention of hooking up with one of the Fallen. Not even after Brends gives her an unforgettable taste of the sin and seduction he can deliver with those wicked lips. She’s after information, not a stint as some Goblin’s toy of the month. What she doesn’t know is that with a sadistic killer carving up his brethren, Brends is playing for keeps, hunting the one woman whose bloodline can end the mayhem, whose bond can restore his lost wings.”

So basically the Dominions the Heavens first line of defense are set up to take the fall for some misdeed and Archangel Michael casts them from Heaven but allows them a way to redeem themselves by finding their soul mate and loving them more than life itself. After 3000 years later not one Dominion has found their soul mate. These once angels now call themselves the Fallen.

The Fallen have their other half what is called a Goblin, it is this half that is the Fallen’s punishment for crimes not committed. To survive the Fallen must Bond with a human to feed off of their emotions. In turn, the Goblin half will grant one wish to the human and the man half provides pleasure beyond belief.

Review:

I’m going to start this review by saying this is an intriguing concept. Fallen Angels are not new, but to have them as incubi of sorts is a bit different. Brends is one of the more powerful of the Fallen, a warrior of old. Now he is basically the head of the M-Towns supernatural and the Fallens warriors. Now he has a rogue on his hands, a Fallen that is killing human woman as well as his brother warriors. Mischka Baran doesn’t care about the Fallen, in fact she can’t stand supernaturals as a whole. Her cousin is what brings her to G2, she would do anything for her beloved cousin Pell, even sell her soul to Brends.

So, I had a few issues with this book. First, scenes seemed to abruptly end unfinished and move on to an unrelated scene. In a similar note, you are dropped into this world with no real world building. When you start this book its like it’s the 2^nd or 3^rd in a series, like you should already know what the world is all about, but it’s the first, so you don’t. It takes a while into the book before you truly feel comfortable in the new world that Anne March built. Then there is a secondary love story going on, which at times was more interesting them the primary love story, however, it is left very sparse on details. It does not integrate with the rest of the story. A good example of integrating a secondary love story with the primary would be in Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh. The second story of Walker and Lara seamlessly integrates into the plot. You don’t feel like it takes away from the primary story but adds to it. There are enough details to feel like the story is complete and you know this couple. In this book it starts to heat up and then bam just as soon as you’re getting into this secondary plot it abruptly ends and you don’t hear from this couple again until almost the end of the book, you have no idea what happens in the middle. Next our heroine Mischka is a smart woman, but is really dense. I mean seriously, dense, it’s almost laughable. Lastly, is this erotica or is this romance? I don’t see anything that indicates it’s supposed to be erotica but sex is the central theme from the first page. If the characters are not thinking about sex, or talking about sex, then they are having sex and the character development suffers for it.

Ok, so all that being said, it was a decent book. It kept me engaged pretty much from beginning to end. I read it straight through and it kept me up. The concept is intriguing and a bit different, I like the unique.  As for the characters, Brends is your typical Alpha Male type, I’d have to say I enjoyed him. He knows what he wants and is willing to go for it. He’s loyal and protects what’s his. He’s not my favorite male character ever but he’s quite enjoyable. Mischka, like I said is smart, sassy and holds her own even against the Fallen. She does not take Brends shit and gives as good as she gets, which is why it was all that more annoying when she was being so damn dense. She should have seen that set up from the beginning, it was that obvious. She is a good girl who wants to do bad things! Who doesn’t feel that way sometimes, and when a good girl goes bad, it’s epic. The sex scenes are plentiful and erotic probably the most developed scenes of the book.  The second book in the series I believe comes out soon. I have to say that I’ll probably read it, I’m intrigued and I would like to see where Anne Marsh goes with this and hopefully some of the weaknesses are fixed in the next book.

*This book is provided by the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review. 

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