A review by reader44ever
Tall, Dark & Dead by Tate Hallaway

3.0

This story turned out to be kind of "meh" for me. It had interesting characters, but both they and the plot left a bit to be desired. I liked Garnet, the MC, but one minute she was hot for Sebastian, the next minute she was horrified by him, and in the end he was "someone I trusted so profoundly." All I could say in the end was, "Uhm. . .what, now?"

Also, the spine of the book says that this is a Paranormal Romance. It wasn't. Sure, there was sex in this book, but romance? If Garnet had stuck by Sebastian and believed in him throughout the book, then I might have felt that this book deserved the genre label of "paranormal romance." Instead, though, she

was so upset by how he behaved with Feather that when Parrish showed up in her life again, she had sex with him!

*grrr*

(And to make matters worse, Parrish

sort of fizzled as a character after Sebastian got his grimoire back. Garnet left his presence, and that was the last we saw of him.

)

I had thought going into this book that it was a paranormal mystery, but that didn't work for it either. There was a bit of a mystery, or rather a bit of suspense, caused by the Vatican Agents being after Sebastian's mysterious formula, but everything just seemed to fall flat for me. Mostly because of Garnet's in-lust-with-Sebastian--hate-for-Sebastian feelings.

There was one line that made me laugh early in the story, on page 15, but if anything, this line makes Garnet's subsequent pull-back from Sebastian all the more annoying to me. The line that made me laugh? . . .

"Fuck me," [Sebastian] swore. While I was thinking, Yes, I'd like to. . ."

:-) So I had high hopes that Garnet and Sebastian would hit it off, and they did, but then Sebastian

was grievously wounded and, as a result, indelicate when taking blood from Feather. (He was a hell of a lot more than "indelicate," (my word choice, not the author's), but he was majorly wounded for crying out loud!)

So Garnet's pull-back from him, though I understand her reasoning, just aggravated me no-end. And Sebastian wasn't much better. He went from being rather nice (and hot) to being a douche and a loser. . . Only to once again be in charity with Garnet by the end, such that he was the "someone I trusted so profoundly." *ARGH!!!*

Perhaps needless to say, but though I liked this book (it was sort-of good, just aggravating), I do not plan to read more of this Garnet Lacey series. This first story just aggravated me too much and it didn't really flow very well.

But if I do someday decide to revisit this series, in the end, Garnet and Sebastian

performed The Great Rite (they had sex) to give his formula the magical boost it needed to work, and it worked (it also seemed to give Garnet the power boost she needed to put Lilith into hibernation inside herself). Sebastian is once again sun-resistant and presumably back to full "health." (He's a vampire, so he's dead, so how fully healthy can he really be?)

He was safe.
We were safe.
And we only had two bodies to bury.
I could live with that. [fin]

I must say that I had to put a bit of thought into figuring out who the "two bodies" were. It came to me pretty quick, though:

"Leader Guy" and "Sensitive" were killed by Sebastian when he and Garnet returned to his house to perform the ritual for the formula. Their trap for Sebastian needed a little work, hence their deaths.

This reminds me, though. . . Rosa and the Guy with the Bow (or whatever Garnet called him), the two remaining Vatican agents. . . Did they really buy Garnet's show that

she and Sebastian were dead? Mátyás knows they're not really dead, and he left with them.

So . . . ??? But . . .

No, I am not going to read more in this series, so I guess, sadly, I just don't care.