Title: Faelon
Series: The Forgotten Touch #1
Author: A.J Kelton
Genre: MM / Paranormal / S&M
Length: Novel
Publisher: MLR Books (April 4th, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥2 Hearts
Reviewer: Thommie
Blurb: Who knew that loving a Nephilim could be so dangerous?
Faelon, a 3000-year-old Nephilim, fleeing a demonic master, found safety with the church. He has repaid their kindness by translating various artifacts. Father Donovan has watched as Faelon became a recluse, fearing those who would harm him.
Jax, wanting a change, moves to Salem, MA where he finds work as a churches security guard. Not believing that Faelon is a Nephilim, he is forced to confront his own beliefs in the supernatural.
Can he learn to accept Faelon, and be the master he requires? Or lose the man he loves to the demons who would harm him.
Product Link: http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=AJKFAELN
Review: Read through this book a thought kept bothering me. How can you mess up such an enticing idea? A Nephilim, a creature born from an Angel and a mortal, an immortal himself existing for thousands of years as a pleasure slave, passing through from master to master until he was kidnapped by a demon who basked and gained power from the nephilim’s sexual pain. Living through nightmares on the Demon’s hands, he finally escapes only to fall from the sky and get saved by a priest. Ever since the contemporary days, he lives hidden in the basement of the Church, his secrets passing from Father to Father each of them choosing the next who will replace them, each of them protecting a half angel in the heart of their Church from mortals and immortals alike, until the day that the last Father does not choose another priest, but a mere human for their nephilim’s protection.
I mean the idea is great, you can explore it in so many ways and get a hell of a story from it or many more. You can’t go wrong with this, or so I thought.
The writing is bad and for me it ruined a perfect chance for a great series. There is the classic telling without showing. There is the multi-head-pop where you know everybody’s thoughts. There is constant repetition of details and facts. We were told over and over again the same facts, for several paragraphs and from different characters. The character’s development was horrible. They were all limited in dimensions, almost flat, their personality lacking and a note of constant whining overcame them, a somewhat petulance that had me not only not care for them but utterly dislike them too.
The fact that there was now “showing” meant that we didn’t get to experience any feelings/emotions between the characters. The Master/slave relationship between them was shot to pieces by numerous factors. The romantic relationship was beyond surreal taking a flare from day one with Faelon blurting out all his sadomasochistic cravings and in the matter of a week the two men went from strangers, to lovers, to declarations of love and a falling apart.
The plot itself was one dimension for me as it focused solely on the sexual games between the pair – games that held no passion, sensuality, eroticism whatsoever. If there was more to the plot it felt dropped there for the sole purpose of making the sex-games going.
The villain’s character, the demon Caymen, was beyond flat. He made one appearance and that was in passing. He actually bumped shoulders with our Hero, Jax, admonished him with a “what it mortal” and vanished. That was all his part in this book, everything else about him we got to learn it from Faelon’s “telling”. I wonder, what is the purpose of a demon chasing a Nephilim, killing bodies that we are told in the very end of the book they are look-alike of said Nephilim, blowing up a church in the middle of the day and then vanishing. Never got that one.
And then we had the sudden guest appearance of Delgorio, Faelon’s real Master, an Ariel Nephilim Prince, who comes to the rescue, and I’m left staring there wonder what the hell did just happen and why would Delgorio show up now and not what Faelon was kidnapped by the demon and viciously tortured for centuries.
Here I go again ranting. I can go on pointing at every single detail gone wrong with this book but that won’t do, it would take me forever. This simply was not ready to get out there in the current state. It’s in dire need of editing, revision, a solid plot and some serious character development before even hitting the shelves. As it is I disliked it and would not recommend it.