UNDYING DESTINY by Jessica Lee

Undying Destiy
Jessica Lee

Rating: C-
Release Date: 06/17/13
Synopsis:
Kenric St. James is out for revenge. Over 300 years ago, an ancient female vampire turned him against his will and killed the woman he loved. He’s spent more than a century building an Enclave of warrior vampires who have sworn to defend humanity against his evil sire and her minions. But when Kenric finds a woman he finally burns to claim as his own again, Kenric knows loving her means giving his sire another target.

Emily Ross just wanted a fresh start. She’s a survivor, coming off the tail end of an abusive relationship, and craves time alone to learn who she is and to save the home that holds her heart. The last thing she needed was a controlling, alpha male calling all the shots.

Meeting Kenric might just have changed her mind, though. He is wrong for her in all the right ways. But in order to keep her heart from breaking, he first has to keep the hoards of evil vamps from stealing her very breath.

My thoughts on the book:
As other reviewers have stated, nothing about Undying Destiny was that unique, including the characters. I found myself bored more often than I should have been, considering all that was going on. Also, the multiple points of view didn't really work for me. Furthermore, the way the plot was handled left no sense of mystery to the story. And finally, while the writing was well-done, it wasn't exactly captivating. If you're looking for a pointless romance, then this book is for you. If you're looking for depth of plot, then I'd skip this one. 

For the characters' pasts, they didn't really act believably, in my opinion. They opened up about what happened way too much, and they also were magically cured through love or some other bs. I didn't buy that, and while this novel does address some very important issues, such as the rape of men by women (which is for the most part ignored and needs to be talked about), how the characters handled things almost downplayed the importance of such issues. However, at least the author is trying to open a dialogue (at least I assume that's what she's doing instead of just including stuff for plot's sake), and that is commendable. The characters themselves were okay, but didn't stand out much. I liked Emily just fine, but she's not a memorable character. The same can be said for Kenric. While Marguerite is abhorrent, she's still not an extraordinary villain. 

As I previously mentioned, the multiple points of view didn't work, and this is because no character had a unique voice. They all spoke relatively the same, and there were no distinguishing dialogue choices to make the multiple POVs add anything to the story. The only thing that they did do is kill any sense of mystery that could have been present in the plot. Lee is a decent writer, but nothing was extremely captivating or entrancing. I didn't connect to the emotions of the characters, nor did I have an easy time picturing the surroundings even though the descriptions were top notch. Some writing is just hard to connect to, and that was the case in this novel. I'm not sure if it was because of the characters making no sense to me or if it was because it just didn't "click" for me. 

Overall, I'd recommend this book to people who love romance, but don't really care about realistic character and relationship development or a solid plot. It's not a bad book, but it definitely is not my favorite either.

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