Immortal Sins has an interesting, if not particularly original, theme:
700-odd year old vampire Jason Rourke has been trapped for 300 years in a painting after seducing a wizard's daughter.
The wizard got his own back rather dramatically.
Karinna Adams finds herself fascinated with the painting,
and the gallery which is selling it decides to lend her free of charge this vastly valuable piece of work so she can see if she likes it at home.
Yes, really. Hmmm. Anyway, once Karinna has got the painting home, she appears to forget that it's just on loan; once Jason has escaped from the painting (which involves its destruction), no one seems to mind.
Lucky Karinna!
Karinna wasn't expecting the man in the painting to be a real man, never mind a vampire. She finds herself introducing Jason to life in
21st-century America with things like computers, washing machines, fridges, malls, etc. Jason is determined to rescue the wizard's daughter from another painting, but he needs Karinna's help. Karinna may have originally been just a woman who helped him to escape, but she is becoming rather more important to him.
I enjoyed this book right up until the final quarter. There it takes a disastrous dip, almost as if someone else were writing it. The unfolding of modern-day life to Jason
is interesting, and his relationship to Karinna - although rather superficial -
is fairly well-described.
It all goes terribly wrong in the last fourth of the book. Jason does something to Karinna against her will, and
it remains unresolved by the end of the book. Karinna breaks some of her own relationship rules despite Jason apparently giving her the option of more of a commitment. It's as if the author forgot what she had previously written. The issue of the non-payment for the painting
is a massive clanger, and the author doesn't fully utilize the interesting section where they travel to Romania.
Overall, despite starting reasonably well, Immortal Sins tails off badly
to feel unfinished. Perhaps there's another to come in the series, but this one
is a disappointment on its own.