For months, Almonzo Spenser has been tormented by the presence of his sister-in-law, Tabitha.  He craves her every second, and it’s driving him mad.  Tabitha wants him, too.  This doesn’t stop her from resisting him, even though she’s destined to become his forever.   What secret is she hiding?

Darian Sabbat, vampire mob kingpin, despises the Spenser clan and will do everything to gain dominion over them.  He is ruthless, cold, and murders his own kind.  Darian wants Tabitha, and plans to further his ambitions by using her any way he can.  What role will Darian play when the truth is revealed? 

I really wanted to like this series.  It’s got loads of good ideas and potential.  Writing is like music.  It should have a cadence, rhythm and flow, and poetic symmetry.  Most important, it should make sense!  That’s where the narrative style fails in Winning Virgin Love.  I was too busy struggling to decipher the context.  In all fairness to the author, I’ve included samples from the novel.

“His eyes penetrated her in a way his manhood potentially never would and she liked the way he looked at her.”   Sadly, this sentence is an example of why it was so painful to read both books.  Other times, the dialogue was incoherent and difficult to follow.  “And no man, or vampire, will live if he ever tastes what I alone can sip.”  The phrasing weakens Almonzo’s threat and it makes him sound ridiculous.  The descriptions aren’t much better either.  “The man retained the right for stark confidence and he defined sexy to the extreme.”   This is supposed to offer a picture of Darian’s vibe, but you have to force feed your imagination to grasp it.  As for Tabitha’s character development, she’s a lot like her sister Natasha from Winning Virgin Blood.

There was little to no harmony in the novel’s structure and synchronization, which made it hard to keep up with the plot and characters.   Potential, creativity, and a few twists couldn’t overcome bad word choices, unclear phrasing, and melodramatic dialogue.   By the time I got to the end, I felt like I’d translated secret code.   Maybe deficient editing is to blame, who knows?  All I can relate are my observations by providing examples of why I couldn’t appreciate this book, no matter how much I wanted to.   There’s obviously a following for this series because the third book, Winning Virgin Lust is available.