Review – ‘Midnight Eclipse’ by Arial Burnz

Blurb 

Broderick MacDougal follows the familiar yearning of his soul to a fierce warrior who is as seductive as a siren at sea – and she is just as deadly. The world of the supernatural opens to Broderick as he not only finds himself in the midst of an ancient war of shape shifters, the devious Cordelia Harley has re-entered his life and has a few of her own surprises.

Born into a hated race of Norse werewolves, Celina Hunter knows all too well the dangers of trusting anyone other than her two brothers. And yet the survival of her family hinges on trusting the strangely familiar Broderick MacDougal, a natural enemy of her kind…yet one her tribe’s Shaman advisors confirm is her soul mate. Enemy or not, Celina slips into the spell of this vampire’s promises of eternal love, gambling with all she holds dear.

Broderick and Celina are bound by a curse, but having come this far through the centuries, Broderick is not about to risk his chance at having his soul mate for eternity. The price, however, may be more than Celina is willing to pay as there is more at stake than just her immortal soul. 

Review 

This is the fourth book in the Bonded by Blood series.

Broderick lost his beloved Monika seventy years ago and spent ten of those years in a mindless, blood-fueled rage over her murder. Monika was a fire witch and the reincarnation of his first love, Davina. They met in the previous book and, in this book, Monika was already long dead and is now reincarnated into Celina, a Norse wolf shapeshifter.

It seems Broderick meets and falls in love with his reincarnated Davina once a century. He first met Davina in 1514, Monika in 1636 and now Celina in 1739. He shares a few decades with each one of them, a human lifetime, before the women die and he has to wait several decades for his beloved’s spirit to return.

Celina is the daughter of the Manegarmian wolf clan chieftain and he hates vampires. Her dad and two older brothers are overly protective of her when it comes to romance and their distrust of Broderick, but they don’t mind when she battles their enemy, a rival wolf shifter clan, the Sköllarians. She’s described as a fierce warrior but I have a hard time seeing that because she won’t stand up to the men in her family. Likewise, Broderick treats her too much like a priceless treasure. That’s nice and romantic, men should do that, but she accepted his care way too easily for me to think of her as a warrior.

The Army of Light, humans with God-divine gifts, are now called the Illuminati and they’ve raged war on all vamsyrians due to Angus killing many of them in the previous book. They are the main threat/villain in this segment.

Angus, Broderick’s half-brother and vamsyrian enemy, is a prisoner of even crueler vampires than he is. His horrible childhood is finally described in detail and it brings him into a sympathetic light.

Malloren Rune, a fellow vamsyrian and a prophetess, and Cordelia Harley, another vamsyrian, returned to help Broderick, Celina and their friends find the Solar Eclipse ring which could help reunite the warring wolf clans and provide Broderick a way to walk in the daylight hours.

The detailed Norse mythology of the sun and moon gods/wolves was interesting but confusing.

Other than the Norse shapeshifters, the Selkies, seal shapeshifters, are introduced into the series but I wish we could’ve learned more about their history and heritage as we did the wolf shifters.

The Elemental witches and mages we learned about in the last book are back and they’re in dire trouble. The next book is a novella and will focus mainly on them, a very special Elemental named Jack and their vampire captors.

Anyway, this book needs a light edit. I found a few spelling typos, comma splices and missing periods but the writing flowed well. I very much enjoyed it and look forward to reading the rest of the series.

4 Stars               

Disclaimer – Thank you, Arial Burnz, for sending me an ebook copy for an honest review. I am not paid or compensated in any way, shape or form for this review. I will not change or alter this review for any reason unless at my discretion.