Once Burned by Jeaniene Frost - Review

PREMISE

She’s a mortal with dark powers…

After a tragic accident scarred  her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: terrifying powers that let her channel electricity and learn a  person’s darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of  solitude…until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out  with a telepathic distress call to the world’s most infamous vampire…

He’s the Prince of Night…

Vlad Tepesh inspired the greatest  vampire legend of all—but whatever you do, don’t call him Dracula. Vlad’s ability to control fire makes him one of the most  feared vampires in existence, but his enemies have found a new weapon against  him – a beautiful mortal with powers to  match his own. When Vlad and Leila meet, however, passion ignites between them,  threatening to consume them both. It will take everything that they are to stop  an enemy intent on bringing them down in flames...

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Okay, let me just start by saying that I am a huge fan of the Night Huntress series. Team Cat all the way! That's why when Vlad, my favourite side character (I mean, who wouldn't love the Dracula) got his own book and his own "happy ending", I was thrilled. Sadly, it let me down.

The book starts off when Leila, a travelling circus performer, gets kidnapped by a group of vampires who want her to use her "gifts" to locate one of their enemies....Vlad Tepesh. Leila is a human taser. She touched a downed power line when she was a teenager and now anything she touches is literally left twitching on the floor. What the vampires are more interested in though, is her ability to know someone's past, present of future by touching them, or something that belongs to them.

Anyway, she finds Vlad using her mojo, but gets him to help her instead of giving away his future locations to the evil people so they can trap him. Long story short is that she has to go to his big swanky castle in Romania (of course, right?) and stay with him for "protection". They both fall in lust. The fight the bad guy. Somewhere in between Leila falls in love, but Vlad has this horrible, tragic past that "burned" all the love out of him years ago (the dead wife card) and he says he can't love Leila. Leila says:

“Get ready, Vlad,” I whispered into the empty room. “This is far from over.”

The End.

OKAY AMY, THAT SEEMS COOL. WHY SO SAD?:

I think that the book lacked emotion. It was all fine and dandy action-wise, with lots of twists and turns to keep us inhaling the pages. There were also some super hot scenes that turned the entire female audience to goo. 

This was all great, and it was overall a great story, but the whole thing felt very clinical. I think the author was trying too hard to portray Vlad's lack of love for Leila, that she forgot what a funny, snarky, sarcastic character he was. This left the book with a lot of serious themes, barely any emotion, and adding all the action on top of that made it kind of...unbalanced. 

I'm not sure if it was just me, or if everyone else was too afraid to comment on it for fear that by admitting it, it would become true. Every author has "off books" though, and I just hope that the next one (yes. I'm not abandoning my Vlad over this!) will be as good as I know Jeaniene Frost can write!

Sadly, this book only gets three hats from me. Good overall, but lacking the"oomph" it needed.