Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Title: AllegianceSeries: The Penton Legacy, Book 4
Author: Susannah Sandlin
Genre: Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy
Rating: 3 Notes, 2 Flames
Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Glimpse My Thoughts: Allegiance is a solid read with all of the series favorites plus a few new characters that add humor and drama to the overall storyline.
Goodreads Synopsis:
British vampire psychiatrist and former mercenary Cage Reynolds returns to Penton, Alabama, looking for a permanent home. The town has been ravaged by the ongoing vampire war and the shortage of untainted human blood, and now the vampires and humans that make up the Omega Force are trying to rebuild. Cage hopes to help the cause, put down roots in Penton, and resolve his relationship with Melissa Calvert. The last thing he expects is an attraction to Robin Ashton, a trash-talking eagle shape-shifter and new Omega recruit.
Meanwhile, as a dangerous saboteur wreaks havoc in Penton, the ruthless Vampire Tribunal leader Matthias Ludlam has been freed on the eve of his scheduled execution. But by whom? And to what end? As war and chaos rage on, love is the last thing Cage is looking for, but will his attraction to Robin distract him from the danger living among them?
I'm having very mixed feelings about Allegiance.....partly because I thought Omega was the final book in the series, and I felt like Susannah Sandlin did an excellent job of tying the series up in a pretty bow and would be moving forward with a spin-off series. Even though she mention she might be continuing the series in an interview she did with DO2TC last year, I still couldn't see how she would move the series forward. Well let me tell you, she moves it forward and almost in a different direction. Sandlin took me for a spin when she introduces shifters to the series......picture me doing the Minion facial expression for Whaaaa???? Regardless of my Minion facial expression and being thrown for a loop, Allegiance was still a solid read and left me curious about how the series will move forward from here.
Since being introduced in Omega, I have been intrigued with Cage's character and really wanted to see what would happened with his character. Sandlin does an excellent job of bringing his unresolved relationship with Melissa Calvert to the forefront from the very start of the story and then creatively allows both characters to reach a place of understanding and part as friends. I was really happy with that because I always felt like Melissa was being disloyal to her long-time husband and she shouldn't have abandoned her feelings so easily. That issue is also addressed and fans are given a good explanation of why she so easily moved on. I also really enjoyed seeing Cage transition from being an outsider to Penton and just stopping by for a visit to becoming a "true" resident and owning his new role.
Robin's character is snarky, witty, and brings a lot of life to the series. Her back story leaves lots left to be explored with future books and potential spin-offs for the overall series. My most favorite parts of the book were some of her scenes with Mirran. These two go at it throughout the book and are constantly at each others throats. Robin and Nick are two great additions to the series and I can see them fastly becoming essential to the livelihood of Penton. Both characters seem to be loyal and Sandlin did an excellent job of weaving them into the storyline without overdoing it.
Now, the romance between Cage and Robin was okay however the sparks were just not there for me. I enjoyed these two individually but had a hard time seeing them as a couple. Their engagement felt more like a friendship to me than it did as a "mating". Either way, I enjoyed their scenes together and was very intrigued by Robin's back story. Hopefully Sandlin will explore that more in future books.
While I remain on the fence about whether I Loved this book of just Liked it (mostly because of the huge cliffhanger left at the end), I still think it was a solid read. I'm giving Allegiance 3 Notes and 2 Flames. Check out the excerpt below:
****
Excerpt:
Mirren
Kincaid was six feet, eight inches
of muscle and bad attitude, and Cage would wager
few had ever spoken to him the way the girl had. At least not and lived to tell
about it.
Cage glanced at Nik, who was biting his
lower lip and not doing a very good job of hiding his own amusement. “Is she
always like this?”
Nik gave a slow shake of the head.
“Negative. Not at all.” He paused. “Sometimes she’s worse.”
This time, Cage couldn’t stop the smile
that spread across his face. “This is going to be fun, as long as we stay out
of the way.”
“I can f**king hear you, Reynolds.”
Mirren growled at Cage over his shoulder, but kept his eyes pinned on the girl.
Woman, Cage should say, although she was so diminutive next to the Scottish
behemoth it was hard not to see her as a waif. Probably accounted for her
Mirren-like attitude. Short-man syndrome, so to speak.
Mirren’s hands balled into fists, and if
the man had still been human, his face would have turned about six ugly shades
of pissed off. Cage couldn’t see the big guy’s expression, but he’d bet those
gray eyes had gone from thunderstorm to snowstorm.
“The colonel has lost his mind.”
Mirren’s voice dropped about an octave. “What could you possibly do to help us here?”
She
propped her hands on her hips, gave Mirren a slow, sultry once-over with more
than a little come-hither in her expression, and lowered her voice—but not so
low that Cage couldn’t hear.
“I can do things to you that are beyond
your wildest dreams, vampire.”
“Uh-oh,” Nik muttered
under his breath. “She’s gonna blow.”
If Cage hadn’t been afraid Mirren would
turn his wrath on the nearest safe target—him, in other words—he would’ve
explained to Nik that Mirren was showing uncharacteristic restraint, and if
anyone was going to violently break the stalemate it would be the big guy.
“Little girl, I suggest you walk back
into whatever hole in the woods you crawled out of.” Mirren’s voice dropped
even lower and softer. Funny how, on some people, a soft voice was more
menacing than a shout. “In the morning, the colonel can reassign you to a more
fitting place. I don’t care what you turn into—squirrel, otter . . .” He gave
her a head-to-toe once-over and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.
“Chipmunk.”
Nik groaned and looked at the ground.
“Oh, man.”
Ashton took a step toward Mirren,
craning her neck again. “And where might that more fitting place be, Mirren
Kincaid? Oh, don’t look surprised. I
did my homework. Where is it you think I belong in this man’s army? On my back?”
Mirren shrugged. “Probably, but don’t
spread your legs on my account, honey.”
The air around them crackled with
tension, and even Cage thought Mirren had gone a step too far. He opened his mouth to suggest that
Nik take Ashton far, far away for the evening
and start fresh at dusk tomorrow, maybe with a referee. He froze at her
expression, though. She was grinning, dark eyes alight with mirth and a look
Cage recognized all too well. The undeniable, addictive power of the adrenaline
rush. Ashton was having fun.
Clearly, the woman was insane. She was
suicidal. She was . . . superb.
With a screech that would do a banshee
proud, she ran at Mirren headfirst. If Cage hadn’t heard the man’s oof and been knocked
off-balance himself when Mirren fell ass over teakettle, he’d have sworn he’d
hallucinated the whole thing.
“Told ya,” mumbled Nik, who’d stepped
out of the way with nimble speed.
A burst of pain erupted on Cage’s cheek,
followed by the trickle of blood streaming toward his neck. Damn, but that
little woman could throw a punch. Unfortunately, she was throwing them so hard
and fast, she’d clocked him as well as Mirren.
Cage rolled out of the line of fire and
took the outstretched hand Nik offered. “That woman is barking mad.” Cage
rubbed his jaw, amazed that Mirren was fending off blows but not striking back.
Nik nodded. “As a hatter.”
Finally, breathing hard from either
fists or fury, or both, the woman stopped her assault. She sat astride Mirren,
looking down at him with a frown. “Why the fuck won’t you fight back? Afraid of
being beat by a sorority girl? It’s
no fun if you don’t fight back.”
Cage waited for it. The name-calling.
Maybe a backhand to show Ashton what the Slayer was made of—which, even from
his prone position, would send her flying. The lesson-teaching that was sure to
follow.
Instead, the choked noise Mirren uttered
was one it took a moment for Cage to recognize because he’d never heard it from
the man. Didn’t think it was possible. Mirren Kincaid was laughing.
His voice even sounded
different—lighter, amused. “What the hell are you, Ashton?”
She climbed off him and rose to her full
height, which wasn’t much. “Eagle shifter. And a damn good tracker. And
stronger than you fang-faces can imagine. Plus, I can fly. So don’t fuckin’
mess with me.”
Mirren rolled to his feet with
surprising grace for a man his size and rubbed his face. The fingers he drew
from his mouth were covered in blood from multiple scratches, and there
appeared to be tooth marks along his jawline. “You got a first name?”
Ashton squinted up at Mirren a few
heartbeats. “It’s Robin.”
An eagle named Robin. Bloody brilliant.
Cage opened his mouth to comment but caught an elbow in the ribs from Nik, who
gave a slight shake of his head.
Right. Don’t tease the eagle about her
name.
Mirren seemed to have reached the same
conclusion, since he bypassed any comment about ironic names. “Guess you’ll
work out after all, Ashton. Gonna have to find a new place for you to crash,
though. Since the colonel didn’t say you were a girl”—Cage saw Robin’s eyebrow
take a dangerous spike at that, but Mirren was oblivious—“I’d planned to put
you and Zorba in a room together.”
“That’s fine.” Robin ran her fingers
through her short, spiky hair, and Cage tracked the movement. Such delicate
fingers in hands that held such power. “We sleep together half the time
anyway.”
“Aw, shit,” Nik huffed out under his
breath. “I swear that woman has no filter.” Interesting. “And where do you
sleep the other half of the time, little bird?”
The words came out before Cage could
stop them, which he instantly regretted. Talk about no filters; his were
usually a mile high but they seemed to have suddenly vaporized.
He’d been off Robin Ashton’s radar during
her preoccupation with Mirren. Now, however, she stepped away from Mirren and
looked at him. Really looked. Cage felt naked, as if she could see way more
than he’d ever intended to share. When had he developed such a big mouth?
“You asking me to sleep with you the
rest of the time, vampire?”
Susannah
Sandlin writes paranormal romance and romantic thrillers from Auburn, Alabama,
on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five
states and six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her
bilingual. She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, but was also a longtime resident
of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an
ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a
stick.
She’s
the author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a
spinoff novel, Storm Force, a
standalone novelette, Chenoire, and a
new romantic thriller series, The Collectors, beginning with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Writing as
Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban
fantasy series. Her Penton novel, Omega,
was nominated for a 2013 Reviewer’s Choice Award in Paranormal Romance from RT Book Reviews magazine. Absolution was the winner of the 2013
Holt Medallion in Paranormal Romance.
Website:
http://www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com
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