Russian Prey by Sandrine Gasq-Dion

[reviews_and_ramblings]

It was a bit that I found Sandrine Gasq-Dion’s name in the list of bestselling authors for Gay Romance, and sincerely I was a little perplexed since until few months ago I have never heard about her. So when I decided to pick her latest release, Russian Prey, I also decided to not going back to the first book in the Assassin/Shifter series, and now maybe I’m regretting this choice, since all of the supporting characters in Russian Prey, are so funny and interesting that I’d love to read their story.

The Assassin/Shifter series is about a team of all gay FBI agents who side forces with a group of Assassins; apparently being an assassin is no trouble if you are killing only bad guys (lets this detail skips, since otherwise you are not able to enjoy this series). For all the novel, the author tries to make these men appear cold-hearted and vicious, but to me they always seem like big boy playing a war-game.

There is a lot of the Gay romance rule Alpha Man/bottom boy, in this case cute and pretty FBI agent Keegan is sent as “bait” to catch Russian assassin Vincent: Keegan is exactly Vince’s type, but no one would expect for Vince to really fall for Keegan; on the other side, Keegan has already a long-time crush on Vince, so it’s only obvious that he falls as hard as well. Truth be told, as Vince himself often wonders, someone could question how Keegan became an FBI agent, but probably his strength lies more on his intellect than his body.

The Shifter part of the series is not developed in this novel, part of the previous pairings are a mix of shifters and FBI agents, but in here both Keegan than Vince are fully human.

Another point that I liked in this novel, even if it’s not probably realistic, is how being gay and married to a man is as natural as breathing. All Keegan’s friends are married to men; the same Vincent is divorced and his ex is a man, Andrei, a Russian mafia boss, and he is also co-father of a teenager guy, Nikolai, even if Nikolai is as grown as his own father. Actually I think that, aside from Vincent’s housekeeper, and Keegan’s mother, there is no female characters at all. But again, it was all so natural that it was like reading about a parallel universe, where gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight people were living together without prejudices… aside from some homophobic comments from the bad guys, but they are also killed by the good boys, and so that didn’t matter!

Amazon: Russian Prey (Volume 8)
Amazon Kindle: Russian Prey (Volume 8)
Paperback: 298 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (August 31, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1479187925
ISBN-13: 978-1479187928

Series: Assassin/Shifter
1) A Marked Man
2) Alaska, with Love
3) By the Light of the Moon
4) Half Moon Rising
5) Best Laid Plans
6) For the Love of Caden
7) The General’s Lover
8) Russian Prey

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

Comments

[randomthoughts.livejournal.com]

If you like Russian Prey, you'll like the others just a much, (some even more) Elisa. I started reading them in July and ended up reading the first 6 in under a week. The author is re-editing her early editions, so there are some editing issues in the earlier parts of the series, but if you can get by that while she has then re-worked, I'm sure you'll love the stories.

Oh, and in the interest of full-disclosure, I did help Sandrine design this cover and the cover for her newest release ("An Ignited Passion") however, I never got involved in that until after I read her books and fell in love with her characters.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

there are so many new books each month that I'm not sure I will be able to read all of them BUT one thing is to be said, this new author has her own distinctive voice.

[randomthoughts.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand you probably cannot read them like I did, Elisa with all the other reading that you do already, but, I just wanted to let you know that they are all wonderful and worth the read if you have the time...even one at a time.