Book Review – Key to Redemption

Author: Talia Gryphon
Cover Artist: Judy York
Publisher: Ace
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: October 2008

This book focuses on the main character, Gillian Key, who is a Marine, a Paramortal psychologist, and a sex therapist.  She is also involved romantically with a vampire.

This is the third book in the series, after Key to Conflict, and Key to Conspiracy.  The other two books will probably help the reader with recurrent terminology in this book, but there is enough background provided within the novel that it isn’t entirely necessary to have read the first two books.

Alexsei Rachlav, the vampire that Gillian is in a relationship with, is one of the leaders of a war against Dracula, the legendary vampire who is pure evil.  The Rachlav estate has become a headquarters for various beings, including Sidhe, werewolves, Slaugh, and other creatures who are interested in helping him with that fight.  Gillian uses her military expertise to organize these troops, as well as offering her services as one of the world’s foremost Paramortal psychologists.  She has been contacted by several patients who are seeking her out in order to treat them.  Most of the novel centers on her treating her patients, with the war against Dracula mostly providing background noise.

Mainly, the reader, and Gillian, seem to spend most of the novel on the treatment of a patient named Perrin, who, as it turns out, is the actual Phantom of the Opera.  Gillian, we discover, has also treated Frankenstein’s monster.  She’s a brilliant, independent woman who seems to excel at pretty much everything she attempts.  This is something that the author never lets us forget.  Readers are constantly reminded about how great Gillian is and how much everyone around her adores her, despite her occasional abrasiveness.  This book also has a shocking overabundance of tall beautiful people, which the author is happy to reiterate on an almost constant basis.  There are multiple references to each character’s height and extraordinary beauty, as well as a great deal of emphasis on how sensual everyone in the book is.  Everyone in the novel also seems to have an impressive amount of extremely satisfying sex.

Yes, this novel is a Paranormal romance-which isn’t necessarily a horrible thing, nor does it make the book awful on basic principal.  The problem comes from the use of cliches that are common to both fantasy and romance and the usual tendency for euphemism and unrealistic sex scenes that can overpopulate and overwhelm this genre.  Key to Redemption requires a near superhuman level of suspension of disbelief and a high tolerance for repetition.  There are a lot of tall, dark, more handsome than humanly possible individuals who dress and style themselves like the covers of Regency and Harlequin Romance novels.  The characters wear a lot of open-necked shirts with lace trim or laced necks, very tight pants made of leather or velvet, and boots that reach the knee or higher.  It’s definitely a jarring break from what is supposed to be a contemporary setting.  The Paramortals have supposedly been living amongst and blending in with humans for centuries undetected-if that’s the case, then those wardrobes should have tipped off everyone but Ren Faire patrons and SCA’ers a very long time ago.  The author really hasn’t gone beyond fairly stock romance characters like the Gentlemanly Vampire, the Tortured, Misunderstood Genius, and the Overly Brash Flirt in this effort. Most of the characters, in fact, come from other sources with only slight tweaks to their back stories.  And of course, everything but the war against Dracula, is neatly wrapped up into a “happily ever after” kind of ending.

That said, there are frustrating moments in the novel where the reader realizes that this author could have done better.  The character of Tuuli, a Sidhe cursed to wander the world as a blend of Sidhe and moose, is woefully underdeveloped and was far more interesting than Perrin.  There is also a subplot involving some village murders a bit later in the book which shows that this writer does have a gift for suspense and thriller writing.  The pacing of that last part of the book is far better and the story-telling much more engaging (despite more reminders of all of the statuesque beauty surrounding Gillian) than the first part of the book.

Truly, this author’s talents seem to lie more towards murder mysteries than paranormal romances, and I would hope that future books focus more on those strengths.

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