"Forbidden: The Temptation," Samantha Sommersby

Pros: Basic story & sex scenes that some will enjoy
Cons: Inconsistencies; hand-waving plot developments; stilted dialogue; non-sexy “sexy” scenes; confusions; thin characters
Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Review book courtesy of Author Marketing Experts, Inc..

Jacob Madison was injured a year ago during a rock-climbing trip. He was saved by werewolves, and still hasn’t forgiven them for making him one of them, even though he’d otherwise be dead. Now it’s his turn to save someone, as he finds Allison hurt in a snowstorm. He’s determined to do it without turning her, however. They just start to find a bit of peace—and a whole lot of passion—in each other’s arms, when trouble comes knocking. There’s a rogue werewolf turned serial killer on the loose, he’s after one of Jake’s new “friends,” and Allison knows a lot more about the situation than she’s letting on.

Samantha Sommersby’s Forbidden: the Temptation is book four in a series, another case of reviewing bringing a mid-series book to my attention. In many cases this works out fine with a minimum of confusion, but in this case I do NOT recommend starting in the middle of the series. The book reads as though the series was written as one piece and chopped into separate books with little re-writing to individualize them. For instance, the paranormal aspects of the world appear to be limited strictly to werewolves until about page 100, when suddenly the existence of vampires, mages, fairies, ghosts, angels, succubi, etc. is dumped in with no warning. As is a whole additional plotline involving an Academy of some sort that wants to recruit Jake—I never did really figure out what that was about. This is one series book that unfortunately doesn’t stand alone.

Forbidden: the Temptation is paranormal romance/erotica. The paranormal aspect is pretty much the same as many other authors’ worlds: all sorts of weird stuff is real and they all have their own community in which they see it as more-or-less “normal.” And naturally there’s a supernatural good-guy crime-fighting organization, in this case the Preturnatural Special Forces. Some authors keep this formula fresh through the details, but in this case there aren’t that many details to keep things fresh with. Most of the not-very-long book is about Jake, Allison, and Jake’s pack, so the rest of it seems superfluous and makes only the briefest of appearances to further the plot halfway through. If anything it’s a distraction.

I picked out this review book because I have a fondness for serial killer mysteries, but the serial killer plot alluded to in the book’s description doesn’t make a huge dent in the book either. It really isn’t a serial killer plot in the manner one assumes when one hears those words—it’s just a fairly standard bad guy who apparently happens to be a serial killer outside of this book’s boundaries. He doesn’t even come up for most of the book.

As for the erotica/romance portion of the book, that didn’t gel with me either. I felt like I got a better and more immediate/thorough impression of the female lead from the back of the book than I did from the story itself. I’m sure some folks will find the sex enjoyable, but I found any sensuality was eroded by the book’s use of Jake’s perspective. Most of the sex seems to be approached and viewed through the lens of a fairly stereotypical young guy, which means things are more crude than sensual. A scene in which he goes to the bathroom before joining his sweetie in the tub is pointless and very un-sexy. And a scene in which she has an orgasm just from his kiss made me laugh at the ridiculousness of it. If that sounds sexy to you, more power to you, but I couldn’t get into it.

The dialogue was wooden, stilted, or just plain odd in places. An exclamation of “I’m no longer a man” as Jake transforms made me laugh at the silliness of it. Someone made too-liberal use of a spell-checker as their editor, resulting in, for example, several places in the beginning where someone “repels” down a cliff. Thought-based communication between pack members is inconsistently italicized throughout the book, making it difficult to distinguish from dialogue.

Added to that, there are places where plot developments are hand-waved forward; it feels as though the author just wanted to move the story forward and didn’t much care whether the ways in which she did so made sense. I still want to know where Jake casually got all the coal for his snowmen’s eyes when the ranch is powered by gas generator—that might seem like a small nit-pick, but it’s an example of a kind of unthinking tossed-in randomness that bubbles throughout the entire book. I never did see a decent explanation in the book for how Allison, who was so intrinsically wrapped up in the plot through her background, just happened to end up where she did when she did. It’s a coincidence that belies believability.

There’s a basic story and some basic sex scenes that folks will undoubtedly enjoy in here, particularly if they are looking for a quick, simple book in which anything other than a sex scene or scene between werewolf pack members gets hurried through. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much else to enjoy about Forbidden: the Temptation.