Review: Haven by Celia Breslin

Posted August 19, 2014 by Lorna in Lorna, Paranormal Romance, Reviews, Urban Fantasy / 32 Comments

Review: Haven by Celia Breslin
Haven by Celia Breslin
Series: Tranquilli Bloodline #1
Published by Champagne Books
Published on: July 1 2013
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Pages: 378
Format: eBook
Source: Author
One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star
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San Francisco nightclub owner Carina Tranquilli works hard, plays hard, and never allows the death of her parents and her twelve-year memory gap to get her down. But her life takes a left turn when a witch attacks her on her twenty-fifth birthday.

Three hauntingly familiar vampires emerge to reveal she possesses a latent power. To protect her from their enemies, they admit to wiping her memories clean and abandoning her as a child, but now they need her help. As she struggles to evade her new protectors and even newer enemies, she meets Alexander, an enigmatic, undead musician. Insta-lust flares, leaving her wanting more.

With evil's minions hounding her every move, and everything she thought she knew turned on its axis, Carina must harness her burgeoning power, unravel her vampire family's web of deceit, and fight to have a love life... without getting killed in the process.

HAVEN, Book 1 in the Tranquilli Bloodline Series:
* MERIT AWARD, Best First Book, 2014 Holt Medallion
* FINALIST, 2012 Colorado Gold contest
* FINALIST, 2011 Launching a Star contest

“Let’s don’t and say we did” When the main character is snarky enough to say something like that to the vampire that is trying to kill her, then you know why I loved this book. I love snark in any book and this one has it in spades. Just one of many reasons to enjoy this book!

When we meet Carina Tranquilli, it’s her twenty fifth birthday, and she’s ready to party. Her brothers have come from Italy(where her family is from) to San Francisco to celebrate. She starts the day fighting a witch that has broken into her home, and that’s just the start of all the mayhem that is to come. She is single, beautiful, mega rich, owns her own dance club named Haven, and mainly just wants to have fun. Her best friend, Faith, is a seer, and witches are openly known about in this world. What she doesn’t know is, her life is getting ready to change forever, because twenty five is the age that she is to be told of her supernatural heritage, and her power. And her brothers aren’t the only ones that have come to celebrate with her.

This was as much character driven, as it is story driven. The characters became real to me as they were so fully realized by the author. Carina(Rina) was a good character, maybe at times acting younger then her actual age, and also running off rather then facing her problems, but still, I connected with her. Alexander, as pretty much her soul mate, was the super hot vampire. Her uncles’Thomas and Jonas, were absolutely not interchangeable. Tessa, as Rina’s mother figure from her childhood, I thought I really liked at first. But she is definitely not what she seems at all. Each had a big role to play in this story. Adrian, her business partner and sometime lover, quickly became a favorite character. Her brothers, and even her bodyguards were all fully fleshed out as well. For an author to fully realize so many characters in a book was a feat in itself, but even the villains of the story became real for me.

The story was not simple in any stretch of the imagination. Carina is part of a prophesy and Alexander is the Key to the prophesy. There are vampires and witches, and some are good and some are very, very bad. Ancient vampires, their enemies, and vampire politics, are all part of this story. If you like action, you will not be disappointed, as there is so much action, that at times I don’t know how anyone survives. For the romantics, there is a wonderful romance between Rina and Alexander.There wasn’t really a cliffhanger or a love triangle and that was refreshing. And I can’t forget the gore-lots and lots of blood drinking, and horrifying injuries and deaths abound.

My only complaint, is the information about what is going on is doled out too slowly for my tastes. Corina gets frustrated and then pretty much decides she doesn’t want to know at times(What?), and I got frustrated a bit too. However, it didn’t bother me enough to ruin the book or anything!

Phew! This book had it all, and kept me turning pages until deep into the night. I literally, could not put it down, and I highly recommend it to all adult UF or paranormal romance readers. I will be sure to be first in line to buy the sequel when it gets published, as there are a lot of questions still to be answered.

Lorna

One StarOne StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star

I’m Lorna and I live in Maryland. Since retiring, I spend my time mostly reading and reviewing books. My favorite reads are Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, and Young Adult. I read a lot of indie books in addition to traditionally published books. Favorite paranormal creature? Vampires, but I am really liking werewolves more everyday.

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32 responses to “Review: Haven by Celia Breslin”

  1. Melanie Simmons  

    This sounds like a great story. I love character driven books. If I don’t like the characters (even if I like the fact that they are unlikable, if that makes sense), then I don’t care about the rest of the story. I want to like the good guy and dislike the bad guys. Great review. Yet another book that Rabid Reads gals are adding to my TBR pile.
    Melanie Simmons recently posted…Twist Audiobook by Dannika Dark (review)

  4. Lily  

    Character driven books are always hard ones because in order for them to work I bed to like the characters. If I don’t than I end up not enjoying the story but you make it sound like the characters in this one are pretty kickass. Especially the herione!
    Lily recently posted…Ugly Love:Review

  6. Nicole from Feed Your Fiction  

    I agree with you that the information was doled out a bit too slowly in this one. It did frustrate me. I also thought that the book centered just a bit too much on how much Carina and Alexander lusted after each other (there was a section in the middle where it felt to me like that’s all the book was about), but otherwise I really enjoyed this one!
    Nicole recently posted…Top Ten Books I HAVE to Read!

  15. Celia Breslin  

    Hi Lorna,

    Thank you so much for taking the time to read HAVEN and write a review. Much appreciated! Glad you enjoyed Carina’s snark, hee hee. 🙂

    Thank you also to everyone who left a comment here. It’s so nice to hear from readers!

    DESTINY, the next installment of the Tranquilli Bloodline Series, should be available this October. Dixon returns to torment Carina. 🙂

    cheers,
    Celia
    Celia Breslin recently posted…Happy Release Day – Laura Kaye’s Hard To Hold On To

  16. Bookworm Brandee  

    I just added this to my tbr, Lorna. I love well-written character driven stories. And I love snark. And I enjoy a well-developed cast of secondary characters, too. It seems like Haven delivers all that AND it has vampires and witches! Yay!!

    • Lorna  

      I really hope you like this Brandee! I love when the characters aren’t interchangeable-and you don’t even remember which one is which. This wasn’t like that at all 🙂