Title: Guarding His Melody
Series: Enhanced World Standalone
Author: Victoria Sue
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Length: 200 Pages
Category: Sci-Fi, Paranormal
At a Glance: Guarding His Melody is a fine addition to the Enhanced world, and I look forward to seeing what Victoria Sue’s fertile imagination comes up with in future novels.
Reviewed By: Sammy
Blurb: A standalone in the Enhanced World
Deaf since childhood, Sebastian Armitage had a promising musical future until his dreams were shattered when he transformed at twelve years old. In a world where enhanced humans are terrorized and imprisoned, his life shrinks around him even more as he suffers the torment of his father’s experimental research to enable him to hear.
Gray Darling—struggling with the scars left by his experience in Afghanistan—agrees to provide short-term personal protection when anonymous threats escalate into assault on those closest to Seb.
As the lines between protection and attraction blur, Gray and Seb can’t ignore the intense feelings drawing them together. But secrets and betrayals might prove deadly, unless Gray is willing to risk it all. And Seb must find the strength to make his own future and sing his own song….
Review: Enhanced children lose all rights to any kind of independent life or decision making once they transform. Still universally feared for the extraordinary strength and unusual powers they gain, the Enhanced are, by all regards, an abused race—albeit a small one, as their numbers are not great.
When Gray Darling is given the assignment to bodyguard an enhanced young man, little does he know what he is about to step into and the emotions it’s going to resurrect. Gray, himself, has lived through hell and bears the physical and mental scars to prove it. A PTSD survivor, he maintains a tight control on his emotions, even though he is still occasionally plagued with nightmares and flashbacks from his time as a prisoner of war and a failed mission that left his brother-in-law dead on the battlefield. But he is not prepared to feel more than sympathy for his young client, Sebastian Armitage,
Seb has been deaf since a childhood illness at the age of three, but it was the death of his music teaching mother that really left him alone. His father has always tried to give Seb everything and when Seb transformed at the age of twelve, his father stood by him unlike some parents of the enhanced. However, as the years passed Seb’s father used his considerable wealth, and Seb’s as well, to fund research into restoring Seb’s hearing despite the crippling pain it has caused his son. Seb wants it to end, but his father and the doctor behind all the experimentation are adamant it must go on. Little does either one of them know that the specialist who partners with Seb’s dad has more interest in Seb and his hearing than meets the eye.
As Gray and Seb begin to unlock the mystery behind the painful “therapy” sessions and multiple surgeries, they also begin to cross the emotional line Gray has always lived behind. But time is running out, and Seb is in danger while Gray is locked behind the rigid rules society has placed on the enhanced, and is helpless to do anything to save the man he is slowly falling in love with.
I have been a fan of Victoria Sue’s Enhanced series for a while now, and this new standalone novel was truly satisfying. I enjoy a good May/December romance where the leads are often years apart chronologically but fairly well matched maturity-wise, and while I felt Seb was a bit too young for Gray, the author made it work. Creating a damaged hero like Gray worked on many levels and ensured that Seb appeared mature beyond his years, particularly when he began to recover from the many ailments brought on by the experiments and therapy sessions forced upon him. Gray worked on strengthening Seb’s body, and it created the way forward for Seb to finally stand on his own two feet and attempt to take back his life.
However, the common ground these two men shared lay in their equally traumatic pasts. For Seb, losing his mother at a critical age and becoming a guinea pig with no real freedom caused such crippling self-doubt and physical agony. Gray, on the other hand, was just as consumed with past failures on the battlefield that left a family member dead on his watch, and coupled with his time in a prison camp enduring unspeakable torture, he was an emotional mess as well. It was this shared sense of despair, survivor guilt, and emotional pain that made for a level playing ground to ensure these two men could become emotionally involved in a realistic way, despite their age gap.
Guarding His Melody is a fine addition to the Enhanced world. I’d love to see more stories involving characters outside the elite special forces squad that currently hosts almost all of the Enhanced men the author has created. I look forward to seeing what Victoria Sue’s fertile imagination comes up with in future novels.
You can buy Guarding His Melody here:
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