Objects in the Mirror (StarCrossed 3) by Reno MacLeod & Jaye Valentine

[reviews_and_ramblings]

The StarCrossed series by MacLeod and Valentine is not a simple series to read, since it tests a lot of "romance" boundaries and not only. Above all it questions the main rule that good is white and evil is black and they don't mix, and even if mix, in the end the evil has to go through a purification process to be considered good. Here instead, the evil is evil and remains evil till the end, enjoying its lustful life in plenty.

Jace and Konnor are demon twins who now live in "peace" at Salem, managing a night club. Jace is the same demon that, in Demon Tailz, a previous short story in this series, eat alive a man who was mourning his lost lover... the fact that the man was searching that fate to be reunited with his lover in an alterlife, and that Jace, in a way, helped him, doesn't change the true that the demon enjoyed his "meal". There is then the little fact that this is a twincest story, but well, I believe that this particular kink is now quite surpassed, and almost normal, and then we are talking of demons here, so, well, human laws don't exactly apply to them.

In Objects in the Mirror the reader has the chance to know something more on the past of these two demon brothers and so understand why they are so bound together; but he has also the chance to see that these are not "tamed" demons, they have not conscience: when it's time to hunt, and eat, it doesn't matter if the prey is innocent. Maybe of the two brother, Jace is the more bloody and lethal, but it's not that Konnor is innocent, his unwillingness to hunt is more a question of like or not like than a conscience issue.

Jace and Konnor are the main characters but not the only important in the story; there is also Gennady, their vampire adoptive father, and Fallon, his young werefox lover, and Jericho, almost an adoptive brother. And then a lot of other minor characters, all of them with the same characteristic: they live in a border zone, between right and wrong, between good and evil, and no one of them is perfect. Even the angels in this story have their little dirty secrets.

As I said the two authors test a lot of "no-way" rules of romance: twincest, sex in shifted form, the rule that the good hero, even if behaving as a villain, has to not mingle with the real villain, and if he must, at least he has to not enjoy it. It seems almost that the real good one, the innocent souls in this story are doomed, and only the ones with cracked halo are allowed to survive. And then the authors play also with the main romance rule, the one that says that the good hero has to be beautiful and the villain has to be ugly... in this story instead you can't recognize the evil from the good from the outside exterior, since it seems that all of them are in their way beautiful, the authors manage to make beautiful even the demons in their demon form (with tails, claws and horns).

It's quite a strange book, but just the fact that it doesn't pass and go letting you unaffected is a proof that the main scope it was targeting is reached, it makes wondering and doubting the reader his own belief on what is right and what is wrong.

http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=227&products_id=1841

Amazon Kindle: StarCrossed 3: Objects in the Mirror

Series: StarCrossed
1) Demon Tailz: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/486448.html
2) Opposite Ends of the Spectrum: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/523638.html
3) Objects in the Mirror

Reading List:

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


Cover Art by Rose Lenoir

Comments

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

You are welcome Reno. As I said your books don't pass and go, they make the reader wonders, and I believe this is a great success. And you are right, I "love" to hate Jace ;-) even if I'm more a Konnor or Sariel (or Fallon) type of person. Elisa