Review: Triad by Lauren Dane

Title: Triad
Author: Lauren Dane
Genre: paranormal erotic romance
Grade: C-
Reason for Reading: I don’t remember how Lauren Dane wound up on my radar. I think a friend recommended that I try her, so I did.

Synopsis:

Lee Charvez is a witch in a family where all of the women are born with inherent gifts of power. She is a witch dreamer, she has the ability to walk in dreams and the subconscious and to work magic there. There is only one Charvez witch dreamer each generation and she’s the strongest in generations.

She meets the man of her dreams, literally, when she bumps into Aidan Bell outside their apartment building in New Orleans. He’s a three-hundred-year-old vampire with the face of a wicked angel, and he has no problem with claiming her as his own. As if that isn’t miraculous enough there’s another man, a powerful wizard, Alex Carter, who makes their partnership into a triad. Problem is, there’s no time to sit back and enjoy her newfound loves because there’s a demon out to destroy the source of her powers, and her entire family in the bargain.

My Thoughts: I could have enjoyed this a lot, and for the first quarter of the book, I did. It never would have been an A book for me, but it was headed toward B territory. Then the momentum just kind of fizzled and I ended up sitting on the book for several months without finishing it.

Lee Charvez is a powerful witch. She’s a witchdreamer, which means that she is even more powerful than your ordinary witch, and she is born of a long line of powerful witches who protect the city of New Orleans. This makes her come across as quite a Mary Sue. She doesn’t really struggle except in the basic sense that she has to control her power somehow, and I felt that everything pretty much fell into her lap.

Nowhere did things fall into Lee’s lap more than the romances. It looked like Ms. Dane was going to give a nod toward some emotional complexity involving the menage relationship, but she never quite does so. Lee meets Aidan, realizes that she has some kind of connection with him, and a few pages later they’re married… after only scant hours have passed. From there, there’s no real conflict between the two of them, and Ms. Dane pretty much dismisses any jealousy issues that Aidan might be having when Alex shows up. Apparently, in paranormal romance, good sex cures everything.

There was a lot of sex, and after a while, it got a bit repetitive. I was, however, disappointed that Ms. Dane didn’t quite do much with the simmering attraction between Alex and Aidan. I really thought she would, and I understand that in other series, she does explore the M/M aspects of her menage relationships in greater detail, but in this case I was disappointed.

As for the plot… Well, like I said, it felt too easy. I never got a sense that anyone was in real danger, so there was no sense of urgency during any of the pivotal scenes. The villains were of the typical moustache-twirling “Bwahaha, I am teh evol!” variety, which made them boring.

There were nice moments, though. I was intrigued by the relationships between Lee and her family, and I did like all of the characters. There were some lovely, sweet, tender moments that I enjoyed. I also did like that the fact that Lee is such a Mary Sue isn’t really all that lost on any of the characters.

I’m not sure that I’ll be rushing out to buy the next book, and I’m not sure I’d recommend this one, but it’s certainly not the worst book, or even the worst menage story out there.