Tempting Ecstasy Reviewed

a review of Tempting Ecstasy by Chapparita

My Favorite Guardian Book So Far
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book at NovelReviewers.com in exchange for an honest review.

The two things I most appreciated about this book were the additional plot insights, which answered so many of the questions I've accumulated since reading Hidden Ecstasy (book 0.5), and Conn (the main character) took care to respect his future mate's boundaries while she adjusted to the new world she was unwittingly thrown into. Unlike Dorian (Denying Ecstasy), Conn didn't embarrass, confuse, or reject his mate by hiding from and ignoring his mate, forgetting to take her feelings into consideration, or using his past as a buffer to maintain distance between them. Unlike Gregoire (Ecstasy Claimed), Conn didn't take a non-communicative high-handed, distant, and controlling approach where everybody knew his mate's fate but her, thereby contributing to his mate feeling rejected, undervalued, and underestimated. Conn, like Erik before him, took a sacrificial approach where he put his mate before himself from the beginning, but didn't do so in a way that was patronizing. Conn was transparent about his decisions, motivations and feelings and, as a reader, I enjoyed taking that journey with him.

Conn caught wind of his future mate, put time into finding her, and let his fellow brethren know about his impending relationship. He understood that by becoming his mate, Dacia would be giving up a lot, and he was sensitive to how those changes might impact her quality of life- her happiness, her transition into another way of life, etc. By allowing her to set the pace of the relationship, while getting to know her and her him, he allowed their relationship to be about more than just the mating frenzy, and as a reader, I got to actually "see" them fall in love. He didn't demand she automatically trust him, as Gregoire did with Alyssa, just because fate dictated that they belonged to each other. He acknowledged their need to build trust between each other, which I appreciated as a reader because it made for a less harried and more smooth reading experience. Books 2 and 3 had all of this conflict mixed with miscommunication and misinterpretation, which contributed to a lot of angst, predictable mistakes, and repetitive internal dialogue.Under those circumstances, as a reader, I learned a lot about the individual characters, but less about them as part of a couple and what drew them to each other beyond the uncontrollable sexual frenzy. Jay's writing of Conn's relationship was more reflective of the wisdom Conn must have attained during millennia he'd lived and less like a young adult or new adult romance where the characters make mistakes as a result of their naivete, assumptions, and misplaced pride.

I don't want to give the impression that I disliked Ecstasy Claimed and Denying Ecstasy. I enjoyed those stories. I just enjoyed Tempting Ecstasy a lot more. It's actually a testament to Jay's strong writing that I have such strong emotional reactions towards the main characters in this series. As a reader, I'm just aware of the ease with which I become engrossed in Jay's fantasy world of the four realms when the emotional trajectory in the plot is believable and invokes empathy from me, regardless of how many other unbelievable things are going on elsewhere in the story. Because Conn was easier for me to embrace emotionally, it was easier for me to succumb to Tempting Ecstasy's plot.

As such, this is my favorite Guardian of the Realms book to date, and I hope the author continues show depth in the guardians' relationships as was done with Conn and Dacia.

My final note is that while a lot of my questions have been answered, I'm still confused about quite a few plot details, and have to refer to the glossary (which isn't included in all of the books, although it should be) while reading. I'm sure my points of confusion will be addressed as I continue to read books in the series, but I still vote for some sort of diagram of the four realms and a family/ guardian tree.

My Favorite Guardian Book So Far!