Claimed by Rebecca Zanetti

A DARING RESCUE

Emma Paulsen is a geneticist driven by science. But she’s also a psychic, so when a dark, good-hearted vampire frees her from the clutches of the evil Kurjans, she realizes he must be the man who’s been haunting her dreams. But with a virus threatening vampires’ mates, Emma may discover a whole new meaning of “lovesick”. . .

A DEADLY DECISION

As King of the Realm, Dage Kayrs has learned to practice diplomacy. Still, it’s taken three hundred years to find his mate, so he’ll stop at nothing to protect her—even if it means turning his back on his own kind…

 

Claimed (Dark Protectors, book two) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: September 15, 2021

End date: September 19, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: intimate partner violence, child abuse

            I liked that this book had an actual plot unlike the last book in the series. Emma Paulsen and Cara Kayrs were captured by the Kurjans at the end of Fated. Cara is rescued, and then Emma is rescued offscreen. Claimed starts by showing what happened offscreen. Emma has been whisked off in a helicopter on her way to a Kurjan named Franco who wants to force her to be his mate. Dage teleports (because that’s a power that some vampires have in this series apparently) to Emma’s location and kills the Kurjans in the helicopter before teleporting again with Emma to an area not far from the helicopter crash site. From there, Emma is reunited with her sister and introduced to her new in-laws.

Fated by Rebecca Zanetti

 

MARRY ME

Cara Paulsen does not give up easily. A scientist and a single mother, she’s used to fighting for what she wants, keeping a cool head, and doing whatever it takes to protect her daughter Janie. But “whatever it takes” has never before included a shotgun wedding to a dangerous-looking stranger with an attitude problem…

OR ELSE

Sure, the mysterious Talen says that he’s there to protect Cara and Janie. He also says he’s a three-hundred-year-old vampire. Of course, the way he touches her, Cara might actually believe he’s had that long to practice…

 

Fated (Dark Protectors, book one) by Rebecca Zanetti

Start date: August 30, 2021

End date: September 1, 2021

Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 stars

Trigger warning: unhealthy representation of BDSM

I knew from the first scene that I wasn’t going to like this book very much. The story opens with Cara Paulsen being forced to flee her home by a stranger. Janie, Cara’s four-year-old daughter, wakes her up crying that “the bad men” are coming, and Cara’s reaction is to comfort her daughter who clearly had a nightmare. Then Cara hears noises in her house and immediately believes it’s the evil people. For being a scientist, Cara doesn’t think like one. If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. She doesn’t believe she’s being robbed or any other explanation for why someone might be in her house. Her immediate reaction is to run into the bathroom and try to escape through the window, which is at least logical. When the intruder bursts into the bathroom, what she has to say isn’t logical:

“You have the wrong house.” (Zanetti 3)

            I’ll let that reaction rub you, dear reader, the wrong way like it did me.