About Soul Mates: Secrets
by Jourdan Lane
157 pages / 57750 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-504-2, 1-60370-504-X
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, paperback
Peter's life gets more complicated with every passing day. His relationship with his vampire lover Lucien is on the rocks, he can't seem to get enough of his friend and confidant, Nicholas, and events going on inside the coven are making him wonder when everything is going to blow up in his face. Through murder investigations and negotiations with angels, Peter doesn't know who to trust, as old friendships and loyalties begin to shift and change.
Jealousy, intrigue and deception abound, and all Peter wants is for his life to get back to normal, if his life can ever be normal again. His love life is incredibly complicated, the Council wants him to get to work for them, and there's someone out there committing crimes who looks an awful lot like him. Can Peter find a way to mend his broken friendships, fix what's wrong between him and Lucien, and keep the coven together when everything seems to be against them?
Soul Mates: Secrets continues Jourdan Lane's popular Soul Mates series, which features the novels Bound by Blood, Deceptions, and Sacrifice. The print version of Secrets also contains A Coven Christmas, a Soul Mates holiday story never before published in paperback!
Review
Angela Benedetti writes: Soul Mates: Secrets is about a lot of things. It's about vampires and werewolves, angels and demons, and random fractions of incubi. It's about murder and frame-ups and punishments and secrets. But mostly it's about people, and that's the part I liked best.
Peter loves so many people, trying to take care of them all is causing chaotic tangles; in situations where being loyal to one can mean hurting another, and where it's not always obvious what's the right thing to do, Peter does the best he can and struggles hard to stay ahead of the mess. The fact that he's in love with more than one person just makes things harder, especially when the two people he loves seem to be constantly squared off and fighting. The heart of Secrets, for me, is the polyamorous dance between Peter, Lucien, Nikolas and Sabaan, and it's played out wonderfully well.
This isn't a hearts-and-flowers paean to the wonders of polyamory, nor is it a cautionary jeremiad against it. Instead, Secrets takes the harder road and shows just how incredibly complicated it is to be in a relationship involving multiple people, and how the complications make the usual work of maintaining a relationship that much harder. But it also shows just how wonderful it can be when everything -- and every one -- finally clicks, and how each person involved can become more than he was, and better than he was alone, nourished and supported by the love of all the others.
Secrets is a story about a group of hot, likeable guys. Even granting that I wanted to smack every one of them at least once at some point in the book, I ended up loving them all, and I think you will too.
Sample
Donald Evans: Deceased.
Cause of death? Suicide.
I backspaced and erased 'suicide', then sat staring at the blinking cursor on the computer screen. It didn't feel right to see that word there, but without any evidence of foul play that was the only explanation we'd come up with. Donald's nude body lay in front of his living room window, the drapes thrown open wide. His body had been burned nearly beyond recognition, except that the friend who had discovered him recognized a tattoo that was still intact.
No suicide note had been located.
Donald and I had spoken on many, many occasions, and he was always happy. He didn't have that haunted look so many vampires had. Donald was generally happy just to be alive – and he loved his life as a vampire.
My gut told me there wasn't a note for a reason – that Donald shouldn't be dead.
I picked up the file Silver had left and opened it up. A stack of photos from the scene were paper-clipped to the top inside corner of the folder, and I pulled them free. In one photo after another, the only thing consistently out of place was Donald's body.
A half hour later, I was still staring at the file when the double doors of the study were thrown open. Sabaan stood between the doors, a hand on both. I could see him over the top of the file, but didn't give him the full attention he was craving. After a few moments, he sighed and quietly closed the doors behind him.
"Good evening, Sabaan."
"Come on, at least look at me!" I glanced up and he rolled his eyes. It hid the bright yellow part of his eyes and made them seem completely black, which could be so totally creepy at times. "Well, that's something, I guess."
I laughed and put down the file. "You're so easy to tease."
"So I keep hearing."
"How are you tonight?" I watched him sashay toward me, going around tables and couches as if he'd memorized the number of steps between each.
His black hair was loose instead of braided down the back, and he'd shucked his custom-tailored clothes for a simple red silk robe. The robe hid his lean, tight figure – and his long, sexy tail – and if he'd been anyone else, it would have been unflattering. Sabaan could make a burlap bag look sexy. As he stepped around the
desk, I noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. "You look tired."
"I miss him terribly." He crawled into my lap and wrapped both arms around my neck. "It feels like he's been gone forever."
"It's only been a week."
He whined and buried his face into my neck. "I want him home."