Review: Ascension by Caris Roane

Title: Ascension

Author: Caris Roane

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fiction

ISBN: 9780312533717

Pages: 480

Book was purchased with my own money.

Kerrick is a vampire warrior on a mission—to protect powerful mortal Alison Wells as she goes through the rite of ascension, or transformation into a vampire. But along the way, Kerrick gets caught in a fierce, forbidden attraction to the woman he been assigned to watch over. After his beloved wife was murdered by evil blood vampires, Kerrick took vows never to get involved with a woman again, for he knows that he’ll risk her life if he gets too close. But when a powerful army of blood vampires learns about Alison's extraordinary powers, they're determined to take her down. Now Kerrick has no choice but shadow her where ever she goes--even if it means losing his heart for eternity.

Ascension is the first in a new series by Caris Roane about vampire warriors. These vamps are a little different than the usual ones we are used to reading about. These have wings and are able to travel between different dimensions. In this story there is Mortal earth and Second Earth. On Mortal Earth there are humans that have special abilities don't know what to do with them. They can feel that they are different and don't know why. Until one day, they feel the need to answer a higher calling and ascend. They pretty much go from mortal to immortal. From human to vamp. Some of those that ascend have even more special abilities, and that is the case of the main character of the book Alison Wells. She has never fit in and could not quite understand the abilities that she possesses. Until the day that she sees something that is right out of a dream, actual vampires. She meets the other main character of the story, the vampire warrior Kerrick who has been assigned as her guardian to protect her during her ascension. This time can be very unsafe as the ascendicate must learn how to use their abilities. Kerrick also has the task of explaining what will happen once she ascends and what will be required from her if she chooses to do so. There are rules and regulations that must be followed and Alison begins realize that her life will change. She will become a vampire and although this scares her, deep down inside she realizes that this is the reason that she was always different. Kerrick realizes during their time together that Alison is his breh-hedden, his one true mate. Alison begins to realize that this the reason that she could never find a man that was compatible with her. Her abilities made things difficult to be with someone and she feels that there is hope for her to find true love.

I had a difficult time with the rules and regulations portion of the book. Alison can feel that she is different, and eventually realizes that the path to ascension is the correct one for her to take. But the rules and regulation part of it really bothered me. There is essentially a good side and a bad side, and each side must abide by rules that are set forth by a committee known as COPASS. Yeah, it's a fancy name for people that passes down judgment to both sides. Usually when there is a good vs. bad type of situation, the bad side is always going to do something. They pretty much seem to do whatever they want, whenever they want in the book. Good old COPASS never seems know what's going on. The author spends time explaining some of the rules, but what good are they if the baddies get to do what they want. I got tired of hearing the rules and thought it was a waste of time. This was not the only issue that was repeated throughout the book. The author repeated so many things over and over that I had to put the book down several times because I was frustrated with it.

Another issue I had was with the warrior vamps. Although they were interesting characters, there seemed to be something that was quite familiar about them. These vamps were essentially a brotherhood. They had a special bond and loved to hang and shoot the shit, while playing pool and fighting with each other once in a while. They also seemed to enjoy drinking lots of alcohol whose label name is mentioned over and over again. As I was reading it I kept comparing it to the Black Dagger Brotherhood! There were just too many similarities and I realize that people don't like it when comparisons are made regarding series, but I just couldn't help it. There were other things that factored in as well that made me think of the BDB. There are 6 warrior angels fighting a group of bad buys who ingest undead blood. The mating part also felt similar as well as the word used to describe it. The males released spicy scents that attracted their mates and seemed to go into a fit of rage whenever another male was near them. It might be that this is a common response during the mating time of a vamp, but I could not help but think of my favorite group of vampire warriors while reading this.

I'm giving Ascension *2.75* Bells.

I felt that Ascension was too wordy and was so descriptive that I had a hard time processing certain parts of the book. Because of this, I found myself skimming throughout the book just so I could get to another part. I just kept reading because I felt like the storyline might get better. There were some ok/good moments. I liked finding out more info about the different warriors and their different nationalities. I also liked when certain individuals realized that they had found their mate and how they responded to it. Mating occurred rarely for the warriors and was pretty much a myth. I also found the smex scenes to be pretty hot and if you know me, that is something that is a big must in the book that I am reading. *wink*

If I could say one thing to the author I would say to make the book shorter. I feel that this book had the potential to be better, but, it was just too long. I'm hoping that the book was longer because it was the first and that the author wanted to establish the foundation of the series. I plan on reading the next book because I am curious as to what is going to happen with the warriors and to see who is next to fall in love. I'm a romantic as heart and hope that these warriors find their true loves.