Gennifer Albin

If someone were to summarize this book, it would be "Bridgerton meets Crazy Rich Asians with vampire seasons and fated mates." This is the first book in a series with our main male character, Julian, awakened by his brother after thirty-nine years of sleep. The reason? The Rites (a vampire season) is arriving and his mother wants him to find a witch to be his bride. Julian has no desire to marry - ever. That is until he meets Thea at the first event of the vampire season.

Thea, our female lead, is a broke student working three jobs to make ends meet and to help her mother with her treatments. When she takes up the job as a cellist at an event, she does not think she will be meeting with fate - until Julian crosses her path.

When Julian offers her deal - play his girlfriend and he will pay for her mother's treatments - Thea takes it unaware things are about to go sideways for the couple.

While I loved this book and its premise, I found the book lacking in storyline growth. For the first half of the book, it lagged to the point that I considered putting this book down. I had heard a lot of good things about this book, especially from friends, and this book was not delivering on it. The characters did seem to be clicking and their relationship lacked the chemistry I was expecting. This could be that this is just book one and its growth might come with book two.

That is what I am hoping for.… (more)