Forbidden by Zoe Winters

Important Publisher's Note:
The start of Hadrian and Angeline's story is in a novella called Dark Mercy. Because it is so integral to the events of Forbidden, Dark Mercy has been included here first. You can use the TOC to choose which order to read them or to skip ahead to Forbidden if you've already read Dark Mercy.
The events of Dark Mercy occur in 1955 Las Vegas. The events of Forbidden occur in the present time, not long after the events of Life Cycle (Preternaturals, Book 4).
Forbidden can be read out of order from the rest of the series, but as always, the various interconnections between the background characters make more sense read in order.
Dark Mercy Description:
... Forgive me Father, for I'm about to sin.

Angeline has been on the run from her vampire sire for centuries. She's tired and lonely. High from mescaline-infused blood, she receives a sign--a glowing church in the distance. And she knows. Her future mate is in that building.
The only trouble? Hadrian is a devout priest. It will take strong persuasion for him to see the world her way.

Forbidden Description:

... To see him again is forbidden.
Angeline knows Father Hadrian will never forgive her for their ugly history. When the king of the vampires seeks vengeance for Hadrian's recent betrayal, she'll risk everything to protect the vampire she still loves.
But when she agrees to give Hadrian her blood, all of Heaven will break loose.

So first off, I have to give Ms. Winters MAD PROPS for including the novella Dark Mercy in the beginning of this book!  Seriously, by her doing that shows how much she cares about her readers by not saying, “Oh you HAVE to buy this other book before you can start this one or else it won’t make sense.”  Once again, this gives me another reason why I enjoy her writing so much!

I have read the other books in this series, but it was so long ago that I was worried I was going to be a bit lost. But Ms. Winters isn’t lying when she says that they can be read as standalones. The only thing that I could see coming from this is that you will want to go back and read the other books in the series because there is so many interesting characters, you just want to find out what their stories are.

But back to this story, I’m not usually a fan of vampire books just because they are so overdone in my opinion. You can imagine my surprise that once I started this book, I couldn’t stop reading it because I was so engrossed in what was happening that I didn’t want it to end!  There was plenty of drama, action, suspense, and just the right amount of smut that takes place in the book.

Angeline’s character was one that my heart went out to every time Hadrian was being a jerkface. I mean seriously man! Cut her some slack!! She was willing to do anything for him, even breaking one of the most important rules, yet he still acted like a jerk. Even come the end of the book, I still didn’t like him. But that ended up working out because even though I had such strong negative feelings towards him throughout the book, I really don’t think that the book would have been this great without him being that way.

I really enjoyed this book and I am planning on going back and re-reading the other books in the series as soon as possible because I can’t wait to get wrapped up in the world Ms. Winters has created.  And I really can’t wait for the next book in the series to be released!