Review: The Vampire, The Witch and The Werewolf: A New Orleans Threesome by Louisa Bacio

Published Date: April 6th, 2011
Finished Date: November 24th, 2011
Publisher: Ravenous Romance
Format: eBook for Blog Tour
Series: The Vampire, The Witch and The Werewolf #1
My Rating: 2.5/5

Blurb from Goodreads:
Haunted by paranormal abilities that she can't control, and plagued by nightmares about a demon that seeks her soul, Lily Anima travels to New Orleans in search of salvation.

In the French Quarter, Lily dives into the paranormal world and enlists the help of an unlikely couple: a vampire, Lawrence Justice, and a werewolf, Trevor Pack.

As the trio encounters ghosts, voodoo and unspeakable evil, will Trevor and Lawrence be able to help Lily turn her powers into a gift rather than a curse? And when Lily discovers that she needs to lose her virginity in order to embrace her powers and get the demon off her back, will the twosome be able to survive as a threesome?

My Review

Let's get one thing straight - I didn't like this book. It's not that I relish in writing a bad review, but I have to keep to my code of honesty, so here goes.

Liliana "Lily" Anima has been moved from foster home to group home to foster home, and back again. She hope to find her parents one day, and dreams of the happy reunion over and over again. Even though her numerous foster parents discard her because of weird happenings that seem to revolve around Lily and the diners are all happy to see her go because of too many broken glasses, Lily has always harbored a tiny little flame of hope.

Trevor was getting his furry ass kicked by a group of newly-Turned vamps when one Lawrence Justice happened by and, philanthropist that he is, saved Trev's life. Lawrence is a 180 year old vampire who has seen much and experienced tons of heartache, but when Trev enters his life, they both feel a bond between them, a pull and lust develops.

As Lily nears her thirtieth birthday, her strange powers are making themselves more patent that she can no longer attribute all the strange occurences to coincidence. She needs to find out who she is, and how to control her powers, and who better to help her than 2 hunky Others who co-own a bookstore? But what if the truth that she finds out isn't all happiness and daisies? What if, on this journey to find her true self, she finds out that her mother is held captive by one of the most feared demon? Will she risk her two mates (yeah, the twosome became a threesome, as the title suggests) to save a mother that abandoned her at birth?

I'll name the two things that kept me reading this book: 1) This book's sequel is for a blog tour. 2) I liked Bacio's humor, some quotes that stuck, and the occasional bursts of French from Lawrence the 180 year-old vamp.

Humor example: "Something looked different about Law. It was difficult to discern, and Trev tilted his head, evaluating the vampire. He appeared harder, edgier, darker. Coming back from the verge of death could probably do that to a person, especially one who was already mostly dead."

Quote that stood out: "All she knew was that her body hurt, her throat felt raw and she desperately wanted to be back above-ground, feeling the sun’s warm rays upon her cold skin and basking in the attention of her two paranormal boys."

I liked the way Bacio phrased things; It seemed a little poetic, a little romantic, but in a modern way. And about the random bursts of French from our dear Lawrence the oldie vampire, I don't know why authors like to have them have this attribute that is to have a French background. The first few times where they go,"Mon amour" or "Ma cherie", I'll swoon and oooh-ahhh a little, but more than that it'll pass off as a cliche and it becomes, well, an unintended comedy.

Now, let's move on to the things that I didn't like about ANOT.

At the beginning, there was too much and too fast. Lily visited Trev and Law in their bookshop, and oh, they are so handsome and she feel a deep gut-level pull toward them that made warmth pool in her abdomen. Yeah, cause you get high everytime you see a handsome guy, is that it?

There were SO MANY flashbacks in between the CONVERSATION between Lily, Trev and Law when they FIRST met each other. Ok, I'll explain why I capitalized those three words. "First met each other", means that nothing much has happened yet, and I am still not convinced that this book is going to be a good one. "Conversation", means that they are talking, and still no action, which equates to boring. "So many flashbacks", not only was there no action and was boring, Bacio made the book's pace even slower by adding Lily, Trev AND Law do flashbacks by the dozens.

Apart from the exponential development of their relationship and slow pace, Bacio took it upon herself to repeat things that she has already mentioned.

On to the middle and ending portion of the book. Through this, I have learnt that all voodoo witches and fortune tellers and psychics have only 2 welcome greetings: "I have been expecting you..." and "Bout time you three showed up!" First time, oh cool, she's so good at what she does! Next few times, yeah yeah, I know. If you've watched Disney's adaptation of Hercules, you would be familiar with this scene:

 If you haven't watched it, then nevermind. Oh wait, scratch that. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. So, I KNOW IT ALREADY! Move on!

Anyway, back to the story. So, give me something new, something cool and mysterious but it has to be original to stand out. The plot and pace was very steady throughout, which is slow, and which means no climax. No suspense. This was one of the most deterring aspect of this book that made me seriously consider not finishing it. And when it reached the part that seemed most like the supposed climax, Lily just scraped through fast and easy, no fight, no major obstacles, no nothing!

Usually one thing that strikes me the most are the alpha heroes or protagonist that exudes this definite aura that screams "male". I'll go hubba-hubba and all, but Trev and Law wasn't that typical males that I like. Law was a vamp who strived to help others and who preached about history and reminisced about his past love after he had sex with Lily and Trev. Wow really? So don't fault me for not believing Lily when she says,"Not only had she finally lost her virginity to two men who were sexier than hell and attentive lovers...". And Lily was all understanding and compassion that he lost his previous lover. Ok, that's totally normal. And I like my book boys bad; They're way cooler and mysterious that way.

And Trev. He was the one who had more potential, and he turned out to be the Sub in bed! Sub's a BDSM term, by the way. He was the Dom one with Lily, but Sub with Law. So no, he didn't make the cut for me.

There were a few minor loopholes here and there. Like after she up and left for New Orleans to find Trev and Law, she still had her "fuzzy pink slippers" to wear. So it's either the slippers magically teleported from her house to Trev&Law's or she brought it along with her in her luggage, which is stupid. Another one is that Lily trekked through New Orleans in a nightgown that hung in tatters, barefoot and dirty. I get that New Orleans is a city where anything is possible, but think about it. A pretty girl in little clothing in the cold, dark streets, what do you think will happen to her? NOTHING! No hypothermia, no rapist/kidnappers, no one who gawked and said,"Lady, you look like hell", and no one who was kind enough to help. She didn't cause an uproar, or spark any episode.

Lily's a nice, kind girl who became sarcastic in the face of danger. Weird, don't you think? She's normally so understanding and gentle, then when she was kidnapped, trapped, and bound in a cave, she started going all sarcastic in her own head. Hm..

Ultimately, this book didn't do it for me. The pace was slow, the characters were mediocre (tho I did kinda like Lily. She's pretty, cool, and powerful) and this one turned out to be an m/m Erotica too, so that was the big no-no for me. I prefer the usual m/f, or m/f/m, but strictly no m/m.

My Rating