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Elizabeth Dumas is under quarantine. As the newest Strigoi in Fane’s family, she must prove her loyalty and discretion before she can leave the freight tunnels they call home to hunt on the streets of Chicago. Publicly, she answers to Irina—the name Fane gave her. But how long can Elizabeth deceive the Moroi before he discovers her true allegiance lies with her Maker, Stela?
Stela is in debt. When she killed a human associate to protect Elizabeth, she terminated a lucrative business endeavor. Now her fledgling Elizabeth is yet another Strigoi Fane must feed, clothe, and protect. And he will have his recompense.
Together in blood, body and mind, Stela and Elizabeth must keep the truth of their bond and the depth of their love hidden from Fane and the rest of the family.
After all, one Strigoi cannot belong to another.
All Together Stranger is the riveting sequel to the ground-breaking Terrible Praise. Book Two of The Redamancy Series.
Review:
I read the first book of this series and had to jump into this one immediately. It picks up right after the events of Terrible Praise, so it’s best to read that book first. Otherwise, you miss the two protagonists falling in love. Closer to obsession than passion, book 1 hit all my love beats and then some. You will miss a lot of the motivation for their actions in this novel if you don’t commit to reading the first one.
The intensity and suspense is much higher in this novel because the stakes just got wildly complicated. Stela loves Elizabeth more than her maker, but she can’t reveal her connection. Doing so would risk both her and Elizabeth’s existence. It makes for a much more tense novel. Also, you get to really see what vampires are made of. They are gorgeous, seductive and utterly lethal, and the circumstances of a hidden love affair just made everything that much more engaging, especially when the couple in question are often at odds with each other. There is a dark realism to this that makes Stela and Elizabeth a compelling pair.
I can’t say enough about Fane, either. He is an excellent, well-written antagonist who is intelligent, patient, even heroic but also grows even more creepy as he senses that something is off between Stela and Elizabeth. When it all falls apart, it is brilliant and gutting.
The pace of this novel is slower but the writing and tension keep you turning the pages (I honestly didn’t mind that the pace was slower than that of the first book, because I was fully engaged in the world building). Warning, it does end with a cliffhanger but I would have been desperate for book three anyway if it had not. And I’m sincerely desperate, because book 3 is nowhere in sight and I’m dying to know how this series ends.
I received an ARC from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
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