Review: Forbidden by Jacquelyn Frank

The cover of this book is what caught my attention. Shallow of me, I know, but it’s the truth. Every time I paused in front of the book section at the store, at any store, I found myself picking up this book. But I kept putting it back because even though it’s the first book in a new series, The World of the Nightwalkers, that particular series is a spin off of another series, The Nightwalkers, and I was concerned I wouldn’t know what was happening in the story, having not read any books in the first series. But that book cover kept catching my eye. Finally, over the holiday break I decided to give in and read it.

Based on the description I was expecting some sort of tense Guinevere and Lancelot story, and based on the hot body on the cover, I was expecting lots of smoking hot sex.
Someday I will learn to not judge a book by its cover.

The story was so slow. It wasn’t so much that I disliked it; I simply didn’t care much about what was happening. I never reached a point where I felt that I couldn’t put the book down. After getting only 35% into the book after ten days, I had to force myself to finish it.

As for the romance, it wasn’t anywhere near as angst ridden as I’d anticipated and/or hoped it would be. They seemed to resolve what could have been a major problem very quickly and easily. Now, one positive thing about the book is that the two main characters – Docia and Ram – did have some real chemistry together. The scenes between the two of them, even something as simple as Ram touching her hands as he’s helping her dial a forgotten number on the cell phone seemed to sizzle. This kept giving me hope – but most of those scenes ended abruptly. There wasn’t enough of the romance happening in the book.

Most of the book was focused on the war between the Politic and the Templars and trying to explain the role of the Nightwalkers. This being the first book in a series, I guess all the explanation was necessary, but overall I didn’t find it all that interesting. Also, I found the concept of the Nightwalkers – ancient Egyptian spirits blending their spirits with humans – a little difficult to grasp. It seemed a little bit too weird for me. It wasn’t really reincarnation, but rather two spirits sharing one body. Not really my thing. I don’t have any interest in reading future books in this series, no matter how hot the guy on the cover looks.

I received a review copy of this book via NetGalley.