Review: The Charmed by Christine Wenrick

The Charmed
(The Charmed, #1)
By: Christine Wenrick
Publisher: Red Treehouse Publishing
Published: Aug. 29, 2012
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating:

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Olivia Ann Greyson sees only one future for herself—to compose and perform the music she has loved since she was a child. But that future changes in an instant when a commuter train taking her to the city crashes and is attacked by, unbelievably, a coven of vampires! As the rabid creatures feed their thirst on the surviving passengers, Olivia is spared from an unthinkable fate because of the intervention of another vampire—Caleb Wolfe, a figure from her past who, for reasons he doesn’t understand himself, would do anything to protect her.
After one familiar touch, Olivia recognizes the man behind the vampire. Soon love, and a powerful supernatural connection, begins to grow between them. But with that connection Olivia starts to notice starling changes happening within herself, and violent events make it clear that the vampire coven which wanted her the night of the train crash won’t stop until they have her.
Time is running out for Olivia and Caleb to discover why all this is happening. And the answers they find may painfully tear their new love apart.

The Charmed is a great paranormal romance story. There were a couple of plot twists that I didn’t see coming that really added to the story. I liked that Christine added in a few fight scenes throughout the story as well.

Olivia was definitely a character that I had a slight issue with. She went from fearing Caleb to falling head over heels in love with him in a couple of days. But no matter how strongly he acted towards her, she still doubted his feelings for her. I’m okay with a little insecurities in my characters because after all, it makes them human. However, her continual doubt in Caleb made me want to smack her upside the head.

I liked the secondary characters with both the vampire hunters and Jax and Gemma. I must say that Alec, Olivia’s vampire hunter partner, was rather fetching. He was cocky in his abilities, he was sarcastic, protective over Olivia and when he was in over his head, he wasn’t too full of himself to ask for help. There’s also Jax who is the vampire who took Caleb in shortly after he was turned and Gemma the Dhampire who lives in the house as well. All of these characters really made the story for me.

There was quite a bit of blood and gore in The Charmed as well. Which I must say I rather enjoyed. Too often paranormal romance novels, skip the gritty stuff and instead play up the romance which is okay if it’s a contemporary romance but I liked that these vampires got bloody. There’s fighting, killing, bags of blood for nourishment. At no point did you forget that you were reading a book about vampires.

I personally cannot wait to see what happens in the next book since we are left wondering what will become of Olivia and Caleb. After all she’s a vampire charmer who will always have crazed vampires coming after her. Will she learn how to protect herself and return to the comfort of the tree house with Caleb, Jax and Gemma? Or will she join the vampire hunters and help rid the world of their evil?

“I should’ve saved you both. And for that I’ll always be sorry. But I could never have let Isaac take you, Olivia. For me, there never was a choice.” -Caleb