Beautiful Monster: The Exchange

What do a recently-dead human and a soulless creature have in common?

Love.

Lev and Carly are star-crossed lovers from different sides of the human divide. When Carly passes, Lev has no intention of giving her up, but has limited time before she's lost to him forever.

He seeks help from his devious brother Alexei and together they come up with a plan, but are stymied when they go to a powerful vampire,  for help. Boris, the smelly and dreadful (as I call him) is nasty, wily and as evil as they come.

Bannon's tale is skilfully written and one in which the reader will somehow sympathise with a creature of the night. Paranormal stories are not my favourite, but throw in a little love and romance and I'm happy. The writer paints vivid pictures that put me on scene with these creatures and their messy habits, but at the end, I left the story satisfied with the resolution of the challenge set before Lev.

Paranormal stories will never be my first choice for reading material, but Beautiful Monster is a good tale that I devoured in one sitting.