Rabid Reads

Veiled Target
Series: Veilers #1
Author: Robin Bielman
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Published on: July 22, 2014
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Werewolves
Format: 275 pages, eARC
Provided by: Author

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Never take Fate along on a date. The kiss goodnight could be deadly.

Tracking down Veilers—non humans—is only a sideline for Tess Damon. Vengeance for her fiancé’s murder is her reason for living. But with two botched jobs on her record, if she fails to eliminate her next mark, she’s dead.

She’s not afraid to die, but not before she gets even. Too bad fate has a really bad sense of humor.

Hugh Langston, a wolfen half shifter, lives to keep both humans and his pack safe. But when rogue humans kidnap his apprentice, his rescue mission is compromised by a hot-as-hell, kick-ass woman who makes him think only one thing: mine.

Tess tries to ignore her feelings, but temptation trips her up. Especially when Hugh figures out he’s her next target and forces her into an inconvenient alliance that tests all the laws against their attraction.

Now, with the line between good and evil getting blurrier by the minute, it becomes clear Tess’s only hope of living to see another day—and finding a murderer—lies with the one man she’s supposed to kill.

Warning: Contains one obscenely hot alpha and the woman who wants to love him before she kills him. Look out for a blind date, scorching sex, humor, lies, and untamable attraction.

When starting a new book, I can usually tell pretty early on whether I’m going to like it or not, and after reading the opening scene of VEILED TARGET, I knew that Robin Bielman’s brand of action was for me. Chapter one begins with Tess in a face-off against a vampire on an airplane, and ends with her kicking butt and sky diving to safety—I mean, talk about an intro! The main heroine is an adrenaline junkie, and the alpha male is hotter than the fires of Hades, so right off the bat you have all the makings of an excellent Paranormal series. The only thing that slowed this story down was the relationship building, but other than that this novel is a thrill seekers’ dream.

The plot weaves a gripping tale of multi-layered double crosses which makes each character’s motivations difficult to pinpoint. Tess and Hugh both have their own agenda, but so do the supporting sidekicks who really helped transform this book into a complicated game of ‘he said, she said.’ And, just when you think that you’ve got it all figured out, the ending comes out of nowhere and catches you completely by surprise. I love a good guessing game, and VEILED TARGET delivered a whopper on that front. As for the paranormal mythology, it was straight forward and easy enough to grasp. I wish the author would have expanded a bit more on the different qualities of her various supes, and the reasons behind the Night Runners vs. Wolf Seekers war, but I think I got the gist of it.

My first impression of Tess was a good one, and sparks were definitely flying during her initial meeting with Hugh, but after that her personality began to take-on a stalker-ish quality that had me second guessing my original opinion. Langston had to bail on their date early after getting a lead on his kidnapped apprentice’s location, and Tess flat out refused to say goodbye. She offers to help and Hugh declines (multiple times), but instead of calling it a night she tails him. The girl’s got mad skills as an Eliminator, I’m not disputing that, and the events that ensue resulted in an off the wall first date, BUT she does come off as kind of batty in the earlier chapters.

Hugh was everything that I’ve come to expect from an alpha male; a loyal protector of his pack, unwaveringly brave, and as smexy as they come. I liked that no matter how hard Tess tried to find the evil in him to justify her kill orders; he constantly proved her wrong without even trying thanks to his inherent goodness. I was also happy that Langston didn’t try to coddle Damon and instead almost immediately accepted her as his equal; I loved their dialogue exchanges, and the bedroom scenes were extra steamy. Tess even saves his furry hide with a hot and heavy make-out session after an unfortunate encounter with a Banoth. She counteracts the beast’s toxic saliva with her own—now that must have been one heck of a first kiss!

VEILED TARGET is stunning in all of the right places; Robin Bielman’s writing is new to me, but not for long because I’m adding her to my ‘authors to stalk’ list!

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