Author: Lexi BlakeSeries: A Faery Story #2
Audience: +18
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: DLZ Entertainment, LLC
Release Date: October 15th 2019
My Rating: 4.5 Cups
Source: Social Butterfly PR
Re-released in a second edition. Re-edited but no substantial changes.
A playboy who needs to grow up
Fresh from his latest tabloid scandal, vampire playboy Dante Dellacourt has been given an ultimatum. Either he takes a consort and settles down, or his family will disown him. Unwilling to lose everything he has, he reluctantly agrees to find a wife. Marriage is just another kind of contract, after all. No one said anything about love being a part of the bargain.
An outcast who has only known hardship
Exiled by her pack, Kaja is a werewolf without a home. Her life was never easy in the frozen tundra she grew up in, but it was familiar. Waking up in a foreign landscape, surrounded by bright lights, loud noises, and far too many people has left her overwhelmed. Frightened and with no one to trust, she savagely fights to get free of this strange new world.
A passion strong enough to change them both
Called to defend the gnomes of the marketplace, Dante is almost blinded by the radiant light coming off the fierce werewolf. Kaja glows like no consort he has ever seen. Gorgeous and wild, she calls to him in ways he had not dreamed possible. For Kaja, she finds in Dante a man unlike any she has ever known. They could not be more different, but she finds him irresistible.
In order to claim his werewolf bride, Dante must first discover how to overcome their differences. Will he tame his ferocious beauty, or will she unleash his inner beast?
*Disclaimer: I received an eARC of his book from Social Butterfly PR in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or the content of my review in any way.
**Disclaimer: This book contains mature content. As a result, my review may contain references to content intended for mature audiences only.
Is it any surprise to anyone at this point that I'm loving Lexi Blake's newest release, or in this case re-
release? Because I feel like I should mention this right at the very start: I loved this story. Not only do we get more of Blake's paranormal stories, but we get to find small connections between her series, that I absolutely love seeing.
Beast is the story of Kaja the werewolf and Dante the vampire. Kaja's story is heartbreaking from the start. In the beginning we see her being thrown out by her pack, after years of neglect and abuse. Like Dante, I wanted to hurt the people she grew up with. I loved her though. She was strong, loyal, and extremely lovable. She was loyal to those kind to her, and she was willing to risk her life to save theirs. She did that for people she barely knew, and my heart broke for her that she didn't have that same support system on her plane, among her people.
Dante was the typical playboy. He was a bit immature when we first met him, he was an overgrown teenager basically. But that didn't mean he was immoral. I liked the fact that he was honest about his intentions. He never gave his mistress false hope, and even though he liked partying a bit too hard, he never harmed anyone, except maybe himself. His initial intentions for Kaja may not have been born out of love, but he was willing to do right by her. His growing bond with her and the desperate situations they were thrown into made him make tough calls and think of more than the immediate pleasure something might bring him.
If you've been reading Lexi Blake's works for some time now, you probably know the connection of this series with someone from another series written under her Sophie Oak pen name. I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't read that particular series, but I hope that the final book in this trilogy will explain a little bit how that character ends up in the human realm. I have my suspicions, but I'm not 100% sure. I also hope that there's a connection to Lexi's other paranormal series, Thieves. I'm slowly working my way through that series as well, so I haven't yet seen any connection, but I hope there is.
The pacing is, as expected, awesome, and once I picked up this book I wasn't able to put it down until I finished it. I am always fascinated to see how different authors interpret the fae world and mythology in different ways.
All in all, a great story, and I can't wait to see how this story will end.
