Redemption by Susannah Sandlin
(The Penton Legacy #1)
Montlake Romance (June 2012)
Paperback, 357 page
Paranormal Romance
Sandlin sets the stage of her vampire series in a world where the vampire race is being driven to starvation after a rather innocuous vaccination turns human blood poisonous to them. Only a few individuals remain that are free from the vaccine and therefore, their only source of food. The vampire Aidan Murphy has made himself unpopular by creating a utopian community of vampires and their bonded human companions. Everything had been going quite to plan when he comes to the attention of the master vampire Matthias Ludlam who is trying to force the return of his son William who has been bonded to Aidan. In a effort to bring his son back into the fold Matthias sends Aidan’s merciless and mass murdering brother into the fray to destroy Penton, the vampire’s town. Despite having such a pivotal role in kicking off the whole plot we never hear about Matthias again which I thought was a bit odd.
After the evil brother, Owen kills the town’s doctor Aidan recruits the young, highly competent, doctor Krystal Harris who just happens to be innocent of all things paranormal and has vampire friendly blood. Apparently the allure of lots of money and state of the art equipment wasn’t enough to bring her on board so Aiden ends up kidnapping her. What is it with vampiric kidnappings? They have the power to make people forget what happened but they still resort to kidnapping. It doesn’t sound like a good business plan.
Things heat up as Owen continues to decimate Aiden’s perfect community and threatens the life of the near perfect Krystal. At least Krystal gets to demonstrate her doctoring skills as Owen wreaks havoc with the inhabitants of Penton. We also get to meet the nearest and dearest to Aiden including Mirren, the ruthless killing machine, Will the vampire who’s Dad kicked off all this turmoil and Hannah the child that can see the future. All of Aiden’s nearest and dearest fit the description of the a number of vampire stories I have read over the last few years. Its not long before Aiden is battling his brother Owen and confronting the ghosts of his past. I don’t want to give up the only surprise of the story so you will have to read it yourself to find out what happens.
Redemption was really lacking for me and I found the plot unoriginal. Vampires playing happy families with a restricted food source has been done before although the reason for the lack of viable human blood was rather unique. I also found romance between Aiden and Krystal tepid at best partly due to Aiden clinging to the death of this wife at the hands of his brother centuries before. Overall, I felt like I got off lucky that this book was an easy read as otherwise, I would have been exposed to a serious case of boredom.
VERDICT:
I found Redemption quite forgettable mainly due to the lack of originality of the plot. Sandlin borrowed too heavily from other vampire series. The characters were too perfect and stereotypical to the detriment of the story as a whole. I think I may be in the minority that found this book uninspired and a tad dull but I am hoping that Sandlin will pick it up in the future books of the series.
RATING: 
SUSANNAH SANDLIN ONLINE
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BOOKS IN SERIES ORDER
- Redemption
- Absolution
- Omega (2013)
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18 Comments
Think I might have doged a bullet there! I saw that Absolution is only 99p as part of a romance promotion for kindle, but it being the second book in the series I resisted since this one is £3.99. After reading your review, I’m glad I did. This sounds like its lacking that wow factor. Great Review
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Well number one for 99p is OK but not sure about 3.99
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i quite enjoyed this book but i must admit that the books are becoming better and better too so perhaps you will prefer book 2
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Good to hear that the series improves
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I think you should give the series a second chance. Absolution is better than Redemption. Omega is better than Absolution. Yes the series is better each book.
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I think I will have to since both you and Miki say the series improves.
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I’m scared of the cover alone, how did you open it?
Great review, sorry it was as good as you anticipated. x
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Ah my dear that was easy. It was an eBook so I didn’t have to look at the cover. I actually quite like the cover despite the model’s girly haircut!
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ROFL! Girly Hair!
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Well he does! Look at those curls. I am just secretly jealous of course
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He does look a bit girly. Can’t take those type of dudes seriously in books, films or tv shows
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If I remember correctly he was depicted as being much more butch in the book..
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Maybe he went through a make-over when he saw his picture on the cover? OR maybe that’s not really him on the cover, but a stand in so we don’t find out what he really looks like
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It could be his super girly looking twin brother who decided to stand in for him to save him from exposing his lack of machisimo
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Hmmm sounds like this book was a bit under-whelming. I actually thought the plot sounded a bit different, but agree the cover is pretty ghastly!
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I think there are so many vampire series out there that its hard to have something completely different. The reason for the taint in the human blood was unique just not the rest.
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I’m currently reading Omega, after reading both Redemption and Absolution, and I adore the series. I have fallen in love with the characters and look forward to reading more by this author.
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I think the cover is quite nice actually, but for the girly hair (well put M). It’s a shame it didn’t live up to expectations. I think I did buy this when it was 99p (you know I can’t resist a bargain) so I’m sure I’ll get around to it one day.
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