Review: Touch If You Dare by Stephanie Rowe

Touch If You Dare
Book 2 of the Soulfire series

Author: Stephanie Rowe
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Paranormal Romance
ISBN: 9781402241963
Release date: July 1, 2011
Author's website:  Stephanie Rowe

To save their respective siblings, Jarvis Swain and Reina Knight will have to team up to trick Death himself. 

Who better than a bad-ass warrior on a mission? Jarvis Swain is the ruthless, confident aggressor Reina knows she needs at her back--someone even she can't screw up. This unlikely darkside duo with impressive deadly superpowers of their own may just prove that two wrongs together can be more than right...

Jarvis Swain is a warrior that was held captive by a scorned woman.  To torture them, Jarvis and his fellow warriors were taught skills such as needlepoint and hair design.  Yes you read that correctly.  Now that Jarvis has escaped,  he must reach his younger brother. Jarvis is the Guardian of Hate and his brother is the Guardian of Love.  Jarvis must find him before all the hate that is within him escapes and poisons the world.  There's just a small problem.  His brother has now been hired by Death as a reaper.  Death wants him to infuse love into those that are about to die so that the are not afraid when the time comes.  Death can be a real softie sometimes.  Jarvis also decides to look for Reina Knight, a woman that he can't seem to get out of his mind.  You see Reina once tried to kill him, but was not successful.  Reina works for Death himself and wants to get a promotion to become a reaper.  She must collect the soul of someone that Death wants first.  In the mist of working she has to deal with the knowledge that her younger sister and last living member of her family Natalie, is about to die. She figures if she can find out exactly when Natalie will die, she can be the one to escort her soul to heaven.  In order to do this she'll need someones help and she decides that person should be Jarvis.  He has escaped death several times and she feels a connection to him. They are stronger working together and vow to help save their siblings.

Because Jarvis is the Guardian of Hate, he cannot be touched by anyone or they will be poisoned.  While working with Reina he realizes that she is the only person that he has ever met that is immune to hate.  This makes their connection even stronger as she feels the need to bring Jarvis some relief.  Her touch immediately calms him and during this time offers him words of support because he feels like a monster.  She believes in him and Jarvis eventually begins to believe the positive words.  I felt that they were perfect for each other.  Reina felt safe with Jarvis and knew they were meant to be while Jarvis finally began to believe that he could be loved.

 I'm Touch If You Dare a rating of:

I gotta tell you that Touch If You Dare is a hilarious book that had me laughing from start to finish. I did not expect this at all and found myself howling out loud because of the characters. My favorite character was Death who thinks that he gets a bad rep because of what he does. He is extremely snarky and had the best lines in the book. There are vampires that refuse to take blood from humans. The Grim Reaper himself that isn't that bad looking but must keep up the appearance of looking haggard. And then there is The Godfather, a man that can kill women with orgasms, but is tired of that life. He just wants to find a woman to love and that woman is Reina's sister Natalie. I'm telling you this book is one wild ride and I'm now anxiously awaiting book 3 in the series to see what happens next!