Forged by Desire

by Bec McMaster

September 2, 2014 · Sourcebooks Casablanca

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This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Christine. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Paranormal Romance category.

Here is Christine's review:

Garrett Reed and Perry Lowell were partners in the elite Nighthawks for years until the night an undercover assignment coupled with a challenge changed everything. Perry had spent years ruthlessly cutting her hair and every feminine thing from her life to create a new identity as a “blue blood” amongst the all-male companions of her league while silently yearning for her charming partner Garrett. After a joking challenge from him, Perry gives into temptation and lets her true nature loose for one night. But the game goes too far and ignites something in both of them that they cannot ignore, even when Perry tries to hide behind her mental and physical armor again.

In this alternative “Steampunk” world of late 19th century London, Parliament has been overthrown and England is ruled by the Prince Consort and the Council of Dukes. The “Echelon,” the titled ruling classes infected with the “Craving Virus” use their heightened abilities to not only oppress the working classes but literally live off of them. The virus gives these “blue bloods” enhanced strength, speed, senses and a prolonged life but at certain costs, the need to survive on human blood, and after many years, a horrible transformation into a full- fledged vampire, an unstoppable killing machine.

The human working classes pay not only money but an annual “blood tax” to the Echelon with every person above a certain age obliged to give a half pint a year to feed the ruling classes. This “Craving Virus” is strictly controlled and administered- only approved male aristocrats are to be infected with “blood rites” when they reach the age of 15. Women by their “hysterical” and “delicate” natures are not legally allowed this “gift” because of fear of how they might handle these cravings. A woman’s only place in Society is to serve as a contracted “thrall” to a male blue blood giving him “blood rights” over her in return for protection, money, status and for some lucky few, a position as their consort. Female blue bloods in England such as Perry are considered “mistakes” and are virtually unknown.

The Nighthawks are the rogues, the accidental blue bloods infected outside the approved channels, members of a guild who prowl the rooftops, alleys and rookeries of London hunting thieves and murderers and dealing with the messes the Echelon wants swept away. London is a seething mass of discontent with humans and “mechs” (humans with mechanized limbs or parts) deprived of rights and the lowest on the social scale. It’s this brutal world that Garrett and Perry navigate every day, straddling the worlds of the Echelon who command them and the common people they try to protect.

It’s an unspoken rule of the Nighthawks that any blue blood may show up at their doorstep and join with no questions asked about their past. Nine years ago, newly infected with the Craving Virus and terrorized, Perry was one of them. Perry’s charismatic partner Garrett Reed accepted her as an equal, while her new job’s responsibilities and his support helped her control some of the nightmares that followed her. In order to adapt to her new calling, Perry has tried to purge herself not only of anything overtly womanly but anything that may hint of her former life among the elite, including the sensual part of herself. Having bewitched Garrett that night by allowing him to see a glimpse of her carnal side, Perry is afraid she is losing his friendship but her worst fear is that any hint of her old identity may lead her former master and tormentor to her new life and the man she secretly loves. For Perry has just discovered the Duke she dreaded and framed for her death is not only back from exile but has a hold over the Prince Consort so powerful he is now one of the seven nobles who rule England.

Garrett Reed is Perry’s opposite in many ways, garrulous, charming and beloved by women from all walks of life. Until now Perry knew all Garrett’s secrets including his low beginnings on the streets in Bethnal Green where as a youth he found his prostituted mother robbed, brutalized and slaughtered. Although he knew his best friend and comrade in arms was a woman, Garrett had never seen Perry in anything but the body armor and uniform of the Nighthawks until he laughingly teased her about her inability to pass as one of the glittering society women at the soiree they were to infiltrate. After she transforms herself in a red satin gown, Garrett is not only dazzled by Perry’s appearance, but her demeanor. The serious, solitary woman he knew as his best friend has been replaced by a confident, teasing flirt determined to wring a response from him for his careless jest and he is more than willing to surrender. Now Garrett is trying to balance his new feelings and his own personal demons, as just weeks before, a crazed monster nearly ripped Garrett’s heart from his chest and only Perry, pouring her blood into him, kept him alive.

That injury, so severe even a blue blood should not have survived, allowed the Craving Virus that healed him to exploit his weakness and colonize him. Now he is prematurely approaching “the fade,” the irreversible point where a blue blood transitions to a soulless vampire and must turn themselves over to be executed or risk a rampage that has cost thousands of people their lives. Even worse, the terrible power inside of him that was fed on her blood now craves Perry for his own and Garrett is afraid he cannot control that part of himself even as he longs to give in to it. While both of them face the ramifications of that one night, the Nighthawks are charged with investigating why the bodies of mutilated socialites have begun showing up in London and Perry fears a psychopath she believed she killed in her flight from the Duke is alive and practicing his tortuous experiments again.

Bec McMaster is an artful writer as she juggles quite a bit of backstory and information while presenting a very lush and satisfying romance. While the “friends to lovers” storyline is considered an old trope among romances, McMaster imbues it with a fresh take and layers of complications for the protagonists. Both Garrett and Perry are appealing characters and share a great deal of chemistry. Garrett benefits from being the gregarious one of the two as we learn his secrets as they develop, while the mystery of Perry unfolds gradually. Even readers of the previous books in the series know little about her when the book begins and must piece the information together as it unspools.

While Forged by Desire combines elements of various genres such as action, adventure and mystery it is very firmly a romance. I cannot explain the exact formula I require for a book to be classified as a romance and not some other type of fiction just that at the end of the story the most crucial part of the tale was the relationship and happy ending of the main couple. All the other action and developments are important, but because of how they affect the protagonists and their love story. McMaster manages to find that perfect equilibrium of gripping story and smoldering romance. She also expertly crafts steamy yet emotionally engaging love scenes and has a knack of handling earthy language, which works perfectly in her settings. She has a very luxurious and sensuous style of writing; you feel the silk and smell the leather in her books.

There is also a constant sense of desperation from Garrett and Perry in the build-up of their love scenes which serves the story very well by heightening the tension as each sees the other’s life threatened by their secrets. As they become increasingly frantic to protect each other and their relationship, their romance keeps intensifying. (For anyone trying to gauge the explicitness, I would put the “heat” rating of the love scenes somewhere around an Elizabeth Hoyt level).

I genuinely appreciated the subtle but definite thread of feminism that runs through the story, not only because Perry enjoys a role and a status in her society reserved for men and gets a “hero” moment usually saved for the male protagonist by stepping up to protect the two men in her life, but because she carves a place for herself by the end where she enjoys her job and her rank while reclaiming selected parts of her former “feminine” life. Garrett manages to be both Alpha and supportive (not an easy feat) and becomes the one man who loves her while accepting all of her facets. Indeed the series as a whole has a feminist bent, not only because all of the female protagonists McMaster writes struggle against a society that is set up to feed on the oppressed quite literally, but because the most beleaguered are the women. The social structure they struggle against is one where women must be literal food in order to participate. It’s no coincidence that all through Forged by Desire, despite the hero, heroine, and villain all being “blue bloods” no one feeds from Perry. Even the consensual blood-letting between Perry and Garrett in the love scenes is all one sided, with her drinking from him.

If I have to nitpick, (and the reason for the A-) both main characters hold onto their secrets from each other too long, although Garrett characteristically confesses his much sooner while Perry keeps hers until almost the end, even though she has information that could endanger a lot of people’s lives. This criticism, admittedly, is also based on me as a reader omnisciently knowing they are the hero and heroine of a story and thinking “Oh just tell one another” because McMaster does do a great job of setting up the high stakes of the situation and the consequences of facing a villain whose influence has made him practically untouchable.

In a nice role reversal, Garrett the street fighter is untrained in the fine art of dueling with swords, which settles all disputes among the echelon, while Perry has been trained since childhood and has spent the last nine years honing her skill. (Without spoiling too much, fans of “Firefly” may appreciate that Perry gets the “hero” moment Mal enjoyed, but the more proficient Inara was denied- and she does it all “Ginger Rogers” style, backwards and in a dress and heels). Some may question the many years of their platonic relationship, but in the context of the stories it makes more sense as the blue blood time line is much lengthier than humans’. (Perry still looks about 20 years old, as she has for the past nine years, and the former Guild Master, newly married and presumably ready to start a family, served in his position for forty years.)

The downside to coming in so late to the series (this is the fourth of a five book arc) is that information that has been blended in subtly throughout the series has to be concisely reintroduced for a first time reader. This is also the book where the various couples and people from previous stories start coming together for political purposes. If you haven’t read their books they can seem like so many names on the page and the importance of what they are bringing to the table could be missed. This is not the gathering of so many happy couples just to celebrate the joy of their unions; this is the start of a cabal, with powerful men and women dedicated to militant change.

While not having read the previous books does not preclude one from reading and following Forged by Desire I would advise any new readers to begin with the first book in the series Kiss of Steel which does an excellent job of setting up McMaster’s world, has an incredibly charismatic hero and is among my favorite novels. (There is a great review of it elsewhere on this site). New readers also have the benefit of being able to experience the novels of this five book arc directly one after another, as all five are now published which keeps the backstories fresh in the reader’s mind. (There are also two novellas that McMaster distributed for free on her website that are now available for purchase.)

Ultimately what makes this book an A- read for me is a myriad of individual preferences, but I would recommend this book (and this series) to anyone who enjoys Steampunk, vampires, romance with a certain degree of heat and who doesn’t mind a moderate level of action/violence in the story. It may not be the series for everyone but if your taste runs to the above and you enjoy a sensual romance with a rich, well written story then I would urge you to give the excellent Bec McMaster a try.