Find the Author: Website, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, AmazonTRISTAN'S ESCAPE is a Novella from the Belador paranormal series from New York Times bestseller Dianna Love.
Holidays rate just above Tristan having his fingernails ripped off. He was a fool once over a woman, a human no less, and that little moment of insanity got him imprisoned for four long years. He's never had someone special to share s with and doubts he ever will, but December does matter to the other half-blood-Belador Alterants stuck alongside him on Treoir Island. To help his friends, Tristan has been secretly teleporting them to Atlanta for short visits. Sure, the Belador goddess warned him not to teleport in and out of Treoir's hidden realm without her permission, but she ranks below holidays for Tristan. Screw her. His secret trips are going great until Elaine "Mac" Mackenzie, the five-foot-six, red-haired genius Tristan vowed to pay back for the four years he lost, steps between Tristan and a powerful sorcerer with a deadly agenda. If Tristan exposes his preternatural abilities in the human world, he'll forfeit his freedom forever.
So before I get into the review, I need to explain how I got this book. It is a story by itself. So at Coastal Magic they had a panel where we created covers using snippets of real stories. All of the stories were created by the authors who were essentially moderating the panel. I was in a group with three other ladies and every group got four snippets. One of our snippets had to do with Tristan and him escaping not only the confines of his imprisonment but also the confines of love. We decided as a group to call it Tristan’s Escape with a castle and a very attractive man.
Yup you guessed it, it was Tristan’s escape by Dianna Love. She thought that the fact that we got the name was so cool that she offered to give us each a free copy of Tristan’s Escape at the book signing that was taking part later that evening. So while I “worked” for this book, it was author gifted and signed :).
So to the story. Tristan is a special kind of Griffin, one that can do something that other’s of his species can not. That is he can transport other Griffin’s off the island they are figuratively chained to. The Beladorian goddess has made it quite clear that all Griffin’s are to stay on the island, for fear of punishment, but Tristan doesn’t care. What he cares about is making sure that his family and friends enjoy the holidays, especially if it means he may be able to get back at Elaine Mackenzie who four and a half years ago got him locked up in a nasty jail in the jungle. Oh yes, he is going to get her back, and it is going to be a sweet type of revenge.
Elaine, who goes by Mac, is trying to get her “adoptive” brother to leave her the hell alone and not interfere with what she wants to do with her life. Alas, he feels that their “father” who is in politics should determine what his children do with their lives, and Mac is going down the wrong direction, working for a wealthy man whose goal is to catch some preternatural individuals and see what makes them tick.
When Tristan’s good friend is put up for bait by a woman he loves, Tristan is thrown into a kill or be killed situation, one with Mac square in the center of. Yay for Tristan, he can get revenge, while trying to not be killed, or whatever they have planned for him. What is funny, and not haha funny, but ironic funny, is that Mac has been holding her own grudge against Tristan all these years, and so when they are finally in the same place, she is as determined at him to get some payback.
For a novella of a series that I have never read, it is really interesting that I am able to pull out a lot of the social and racial issues that are portrayed in this series. This shows how good the author is at describing and detailing the main characters as well as maintaining a story line without getting bogged down in the details. Although this story’s genre is a little outside my usual fare, I really enjoyed it. The characters are multi-faceted and are not stuck in a stereotype that some authors do. Not only is Tristan a leader, but he is a brother, a friend, and a lover. The author is able to seamlessly integrate all of these parts of him into his daily activities and actions. I am actually interested in reading more by this author because of the depth that she is able to attain in such a short amount of page.
About Dianna Love
New York Times best seller Dianna Love always liked to do things big…and still does. After spending many years traveling across country to create unusual marketing projects for Fortune 500 company, she’s now released her energetic muse on creating high-octane romantic thriller stories and urban fantasy. Her first book won the prestigious RITA® Award (as Dianna Love Snell) and she now has a new Slye Temp romantic thriller series with the most recent being DECEPTIVE TREASURES. Dianna also writes the NYT Bestselling Belador urban fantasy series and book 5 - DEMON STORM, will be available Oct 20, 2014
When not speaking at national and international events throughout the year, Dianna lives in the metro Atlanta area with her motorcycle-instructor husband and a tank full of unruly saltwater fish named after celebrities.
