Friday, September 2, 2016

Review: Claiming His Desire by Ellis Leigh

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Title: Claiming His Desire
Series: Feral Breed Motorcycle Club
Author: Ellis Leigh
Read copy: eBook (Kindle)
Published: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Kinship Press
ASIN: B014C2KBOG

A shifter waiting to end it all...
A woman living her life surrounded by death...
A destiny few could survive.

Jameson craves death. Former president of the Four Corners Feral Breed den, he’s abandoned his post and left behind his brothers to escape the worst day of his life. The day he saw his mate—a woman he’d never met—lying dead on a concrete floor, leaving him with nothing to live for except the fight to rescue the kidnapped Omegas and haunting visions of seducing the woman he failed to save.

Aoife sees dead people. Lots of them. The necromancer does her best to help them transition from one plane of existence to the next, but they don’t make it easy on her. Neither do the visions of blue eyes that have been torturing her for the past year, eyes she swears she’s seen before, belonging to a man who fills her dreams with passionate adventures and a desperate longing no one else can satisfy.

A psychic’s dream takes Aoife on a cross-country journey that leads her straight into the battle at Merriweather Fields...and the path of her mystery man. When Jameson realizes his mate is very much alive—most of the time—his renewed zest for life leaves him in a treacherous predicament: protect the men and women of his breed, his friends and Feral Breed brothers, or keep the woman fate says is his perfect match out of harm’s way.

Loyalties shift the landscape and not everyone can find their way across when Death comes out to play in this final, full-length installment of the Feral Breed series.

My rating:

A year ago, Jameson met his mate. Unfortunately, he was too late, and she was already dead. But that didn't prevent him from fantasizing, sometimes even hallucinating about her. The only thing preventing him from joining her in the afterlife, though, is his final mission. Find the missing Omegas, rescue them...And then, he can go be with his mate.

Aoife, being a necromancer, is used to seeing things that aren't there. Or there are, but she's the only one to see them. But the mystery man haunting her dreams for the past year is a different story. He doesn't appear to be dead, and he most assuredly isn't real, just a figment of her imagination, but he's driving her crazy. In good and in bad ways. But there's no time to think about her fantasy lover, she's on a mission, crossing the country with her best friend, who's seen the future and it's not good. So he's enlisted Aoife's help in warning whomever they need to warn about the impending war.

Unfortunately, war has already started when she gets there, and her mystery man is smack dab in the middle of it...



Sure, the series might not have started off that well (plot-wise), but it sure did go out with a bang. I loved every second of the last three books (the second part of the series), but this one will have a special place in my heart. The grand finale, the climax, where all the loose ends were tied up in a nice bow, and everything came together in one hell of a final showdown.

While this was (supposed to be) Jameson and Aoife's story, their relationship took backseat to the main series arc (the reason for the missing Omegas) and the final offensive (since it wasn't just one battle). And I didn't really mind that the main pair didn't play first fiddle, because honestly, I didn't really care. Ever since the cliffhanger-y end of Claiming His Fire I wanted to see that final battle, I wanted to read how it would all end, and frankly, Jameson and Aoife were slightly in the way. Everything that didn't have to do with the action, all the romance, the angst, the worrying, everything got in the way. Because. I. Wanted. To. See. How. It. Ended.
And boy, did I see it. That final battle was intense, bite-your-nails, edge-of-your-seat, hold-on-for-dear-life action, so vividly depicted, I could imagine it, see it in my mind's eye. And I couldn't stop reading, couldn't stop turning the pages. It was so intense, that the truly last fight, the fight to the death between two wolves, was rather anticlimactic after everything that happened.

And then Amber, the air witch that I disliked ever since she appeared in Claiming His Witch, stole the show. And everything suddenly made sense, which is the benefit of hindsight, I guess. Her entire story, we got to read, was one big foreshadowing of her fate and the fate of those around her. She knew what was going to happen, she knew the future of her sisters, all four paths, apparently, and she'd done everything in her power to make the future she knew was the best happen. She even knew her own future (every vision was obscured by smoke, for Pete's sake!), and she still did what she did. The knowledge must have been excruciating, and the courage it took for her to accomplish her destiny extraordinary.
That last conversation between her and Aoife, broke my heart with its glimpse of what could've been if things happened differently. God, I still tear up a little. That secret of her red thread that didn't happen...Oh.

Sorry to say, that last "romantic" scene (post-battle) between Jameson and Aoife didn't fit. It somehow belittled everything that happened before. Yes, I know, a happy ending was a must after all the heartbreak and intense action, but the story could've easily ended with Aoife's awakening, and left it there. That last scene should've been part of a newsletter freebie like the Homecoming chapter of Savage Surrender. But that's just my opinion.

Ignoring that last complaint, I absolutely loved this story. Action-packed, heart-breaking, intense and gripping, it pulled me in from the start. A true page-turner and a perfect ending to the series.

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