Rare Vigilance

Rare Vigilance

2021

Ratings2

Average rating3.5

15

Slightly different take on vampires but still recognizable enough to not be too weird or jarring for vampire aficionados. This book relies heavily on the hurt/comfort trope with our main hero, Atlas, being a wounded US Marine now working for his sister's security agency in their hometown.
Stationed in Romania for some reason, he was attacked by what seemed like feral vampires and lost his whole squadron but no one believed him when he returned home. Now he grapples with that on top of PTSD and whole-body wounds but still is able to do casual security work to make a living.
The book starts with him on assignment for some B celebrity at a fairground and it doesn't really fit the tone for the character or the book that we see after. After he leaves a very dissatisfied customer and returns home to face his sister/boss, she puts him on a long term assignment for a very rich local mogul, Decebal, who basically owns the entire town (I think it's in upstate New York?). The catch is that it's very hush hush and only at night.
Then we meet Christian, the mogul's son, who is the typical rich kid playboy and is the ringleader of his friend group which just hangs out at his posh house constantly. Turns out Atlas' assignment is to shadow Christian. Decebal has been doing some shady business in order to secure his hold on the town and now “people” are after him and his assets - including his heir.

There's a lot of different action scenes in this book that keep the plot rolling and it's more of a slow burn romance. There's a bit of an insta-attraction but the author lets it play out more naturally than a lot of other MM romances. The one explicit scene is a bit jarring as I didn't feel it fit/was bad timing or was even necessary, but you can chalk it up to adrenaline I suppose. Atlas makes a lot of suspect decisions, especially in the name of revenge against all vampire-kind, but then eats his foot later when he sees ~the real Christian~ and falls for his charge, a la The Bodyguard.

I enjoy Grant's writing and a decent vampire MM is hard to find so I will def be continuing with the series.

July 3, 2021Report this review