Jennifer Bailey’s cozy family life shattered one year ago, when her mother revealed Jennifer’s father had locked seven unusual children in a laboratory for experiments. Although Jennifer escaped with the kids, the twenty-four-year-old has worked tirelessly to locate their families while caring for them and evading her father. She finally finds a promising lead, but a snowstorm leaves her injured and stranded in a mountainside hotel in the Alps, at the mercy of the handsome stranger who insists on taking care of her. Meanwhile, Nevar—king of vampires and were-creatures—left his magical land of Rashwa to desperately search for his son and the other missing children before they begin to undergo a mystical change. When he and Jennifer meet, attraction immediately sparks into uncontrollable passion. They grow closer as the injured Jennifer heals, but will this newfound love survive their mission to rescue the children?
Author Karen Bailey hooks readers in the first chapter of OBSIDIAN MINE with an intriguing paranormal premise and high stakes, creating a captivating mystery around the children’s impending change as they develop eerie symptoms. However, the paranormal mythology at large never feels fully fleshed out. These unusual vampires seem to age naturally, drink scotch, and seek a vaguely defined mating ritual; it is unclear whether they are also were-creatures, or if these two separate species coexist in the same kingdom. Jennifer’s nonmagical world and backstory feels similarly underdeveloped at times—in the first scene, a flashback to two years ago shows her loving and doting father grilling burgers for her birthday, and we never discover what changed him from that man to a sadistic scientist who experiments on children and is willing to kill his own wife. Perspective shifts between characters sometimes help clarify plot points or backstory, but can also get a bit confusing in places. Single chapters include up to four different points of view, which could be signaled better by, perhaps, labeled headings.
Bailey revels in explicitly erotic scenes, leaping from the moment Jennifer and Nevar first lock eyes into a passionate affair with declarations of true love. The whirlwind romance anchors the story and characters, even though it develops so quickly that the jump from lust to love feels a bit unearned. Bailey excels at writing titillating moments with uncomfortable undertones: Nevar’s seduction—peppered with proclamations of “I claim you” and “you are mine”—can come across as either sinister or sensual, while the way blood plays into their lovemaking may make different readers squirm for contrasting reasons.
OBSIDIAN MINE packs steamy paranormal romance and adventure into every page, but often rushes through plot points and perspectives at a dizzying pace. As the first novel in the Rashwa series, there is great potential for building out the world and lore in future books.
~Cameron Gillespie for IndieReader