Customer Reviews

Come to Me

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love Lisa Cach's books. The Changeling Bride is one of my top romances,
and many of her other's are fun, favorite reads. I was delighted when I
read she was going to have two books out in two months and that she
was returning to her fairy tale, paranormal style. After having read Come
to Me, I'm not so sure anymore.

The heroine of Come to Me is a sex dream demon, a succubus who
comes to men in their sleep and gives them pleasurable dreams.
Or rarely, nightmares to punish those who have treated the women
in their lives poorly. Samira has done this for over 3000 years and
the pattern almost never changes. Until one night when an incubus,
her male equivalent, asks a favor. He wants her to give a nightmare
to a Prince and break a political alliance with it. With no thought
as to its effect, she does and thereby brings war and terrible
suffering to another kingdom and one of its princes, Nicolae.

This prologue is, let me be honest, quite disturbing to read. I can
see why Cach does this, after all the heroine is a demon and
must be shown to need redeeming, but it's hard to read. Then
for the next third of the book, Samira is a dark creature until
she assumes human form for 30 days. Now all of a sudden,
we get Samira the wannabe cute demonette. Cach inserts
humor here, some of it literally bathroom humor, and tries
to make Samira cuddly and endearingly naive. The change
is stark and it's not easy to switch gears.

Then, during the last third, Samira gets a heart and goes all
care bear, group hug on us. Meanwhile, our hero Nicolae
spends his time searching for revenge by thumbing through
books on demonology and the occult. To do what? we don't
know. He doesn't know. No one knows and the story kind
of drifts. Then comes the "love conquers all" ending. Again
with a cute punch, that while original, doesn't quite match
the dark opening of the story.

Another point is that the book is fairly short, just less than
300 pages so Cach is forced to use the "I will never ______
again!" (love, trust, try) type of characterization and actions to move
her story and characters along. The subtle changes and shading
that I've enjoyed in other books just isn't here. All of which makes
me wish for the type of book I know she's written in the past.
This one was good in parts, OK overall but could have been
much better. C+/B-

Succubus Samira does a favor for her Incubus friend Theron, not knowing the nightmarish chain of events that come of it. Not until she meets Nicolae, a tormented Prince studying the black arts in an attempt to seek revenge on the man who has left his body and soul scarred. Samira is caught and punished, made a powerless human female that must aid Nicolae as well as learn why humans are superior. This is dark fairy tale has just the right touch of light to it and I am eager to read the next entry in the series.

I added Lisa Cach to my list of must-read romance authors by random chance, having run out of new books by my favorite authors. The synopsis intrigued me. (If you like dark heros and sensual love scenes, can you go far wrong with a demon who seduces women in their dreams?)

Not having read Cach before, I was ready to skip some pages if there was too much of what usually bothers me about the paranormal genre: the overly detailed descriptions of paranormal culture, with all the mechanics of how they find their destined life mates, etc. I appreciate the creativity that goes into inventing a paranormal world, but for me it gets in the way of the male-female relationship, as with historical romances that try to teach a history lesson.

Give me the romance of the setting, but don't make me pass a pop quiz on shapeshifter culture or the Napoleonic wars.

Thank you, Lisa Cach, for providing magic instead of a lesson.

This novel and its companion book, "Dream of Me," provide just enough background to make us feel some sympathy for Cach's demons and succubi. They seem so powerful by mortal standards, but they are slaves to higher powers. They court danger when their behavior toward humans deviates from the rule book. They sometimes envy the sunlit world. An understanding of their dilemma gives these characters the necessary vulnerability to make us want them to find love.

Heaven knows, they have plenty of lust in their lives. But no love, unless they risk their immortality.

The sex scenes sizzle, and eventually lead to touching love scenes. I'm delighted with Cach's sense of humor, which had me smiling when I least expected to and even made me laugh out loud a time or two. In a sunless world of unloved demons, touches of humor kept me reading and made me expect to be rewarded in the end.

I've since read The Mermaid of Penperro, which I absolutely loved, and have some of Cach's older novels on order. "Mermaid," like "Come To Me" and "Dream of Me," is essentially a sensual romance with well-developed characters faced caught up in conflicts that can only be resolved when sex accepts love as its other half. There's just enough otherworldly magic to make the ride fun.

Samira, one of the lowliest creatures of the night, devoid of emotions except for those she can glean from the dreams of men, finds herself, after thousands of years of living, curious about the mortal world. After some manipulatons of another night demon Theron...she gets to cure that curiosity. She is turned mortal and meets Nicolae...a broken, scared, man banished to a crumbling fortress. Samira learns that she is responsible, through some dreams given to a rival, for his banishment and has to set things aright. Along the way a passionate romance blossoms where in each others arms they find healing. Why only 3 stars...I don't like things that are blantantly written so they can pack in as much sex a possible. If your into that sort of thing this is a steamy book just for you. And just to contradict myself, I liked the writing style so much I bought the sequel. Go Figure.

Samira is a succubus, she knows what sex is, how to do it, but she has never actually had it. But something about Nicolai (?) draws her in, either his passion for his search or his angst, which he is full of among other things.
There are moments of hilarity in this book when she becomes a human. She despises water, and the bathroom thing is horrible.
For half the book she is like a victim which I didn't particularly care for. I mean she knows more about sex than anyone else in the world right? But there is one scene in this book. I enjoyed the next book with Theron much more.

I thought this book could have been better, though Ms. Cach pulls off a good paranormal with this one. The childish magic could've been left out, though I thought it was a good scare for the other side when they thought they were going to get a helpless village. It reminded me a little of the way fathers are and what they try to do to get a smile out of their children. And the story shouldn't have revolved around finding the sexual pleasure in the human form. That kind of got on my nerves. That is what the whole story seemed intent on. Also, I don't think Ms. Cach should remain on the path to the paranormal writing. She should stick to her other charming romances, like "The Mermaid of Penperro" and "Dr. Yes".

The second in this series is "Dream of Me" which is Theron's story and is also delightful if not better than this one.

This was a terrific book. It had all of my emotions going.

The lead female is a bit soft, but she was a succubus that turned human, so I'd imagine that is a little overwhelming.

I look forward to reading more by this author.

Superb! Rarely do I read a book that with even the first sentence do they capture you and refuse you to remove your bottom from the chair and continue on with the day. 'Come to Me' is definitely one of the few.

It's a charming, funny and erotic tale of demons and mortals, and what happens when the world collide. Holds true to the old saying, love is blind.

This was the first Lisa Cach book I have read and it won't be the last! Highly recommended.

This book had a little bit of everything; comedy, darkness, torment, love, sexual tension. The characters both have a lot to overcome and it takes Nicolae a very long time to warm up to Samira. I enjoyed watching Samira become more "human" and the depth of emotions and situations that she goes through.

For three millennia Samira the Succubus has visited the sexual fantasies of sleeping males; her attitude is that these cretins are worthless greedy fleas who want more than they earn. However, when her actions cause a war amongst mankind, the Queen of the Night sentences Samira to spend one month as a mortal so that she can learn why her people serve humanity. If she fails to grasp the tutorial, she will die. Worse the "teacher" will be Nicolae the Magician who suffered severely from Samira's war.

As Samira changes from a spoiled "fe-malevolent" she-devil to caring for Nicolae, the worst that could happen occurs to her; she falls in love with her host. Nicolae begins to heal through the warm tenderness of his "student" and soon they fall in love. Samira has learned her lesson too well for when the month is up she will go back to helping men with their erotic dreams, but what about hers.

This is a fun romantic fantasy starring a fabulous magician struggling to regain his life and an incubus cum mortal learning about the ups and downs of being human to include that love hurts yet feels good at the same time. The story line is action-packed and often humorous as Samira struggles with her new life form. However what makes this a superb tale is the transformation of the nasty unlikable Samira into a caring loving soul.

Harriet Klausner