Jacob

Spoiler Disclaimer

Synopsis

Unbeknownst to humans, Nightwalkers, creatures who prefer to live in the shadow of the moon, have always lived among them. They live by a strict code, which forbids them from having contact with humans, and Jacob, a Demon, is the one who enforces their laws. For over 600 years, he's resisted the temptation that humans present and his control has become legendary. But that all changes the night he meets Isabella Russ.

Jacob is out hunting a necromancer and the demon they've Summoned, when he encounters Isabella observing the moon from her fifth-story apartment window. When he asks if she's seen anything unusual, she leans out too far and falls, but Jacob is there to save her. Holding her body against his ignites a desire like nothing he's ever known, but it somehow feels different than the mere lust that typically draws his kind to humans. When Isabella is able to lead him right to the necromancer and even kill the demon who's been Transformed, which one of her kind shouldn't be able to do, Jacob knows there's something special about her. He takes her to his castle in England until he can figure out why she has these extraordinary powers, and there it becomes more and more difficult to resist his growing feelings for her.

Isabella is surprised to learn that creatures of the night actually exist, but she's not afraid of them. Instead, the librarian wants nothing more than to use Jacob's extensive demon library to find out why she can do the things she can and why she, too, feels undeniably drawn to Jacob. The answers they find are nothing either of them expected, and despite Jacob's protests when they discover that they're fated mates, Isabella knows she wants to be with him. But even if they can be together without his primal lusts injuring her, the necromancer is still out there, looking for another Demon to Summon and Isabella could get caught in their trap, putting her life in danger.

Review

Jacob is the first book in Jacquelyn Frank's Nightwalkers paranormal romance series. Jacob is an Earth Demon and the Enforcer of Demon laws. They have a strict moral code that forbids contact with any humans, but during the times of the Hallowed Moon, Beltane and Samhaim, many Demons find themselves lustfully drawn to humans. It's then that Jacob must step in to stop and punish them. He's also responsible for hunting down and killing any Demons who've been Summoned by necromancers and Transformed, something that hadn't happened in a long time, until the story opens. When one of Jacob's friends is Summoned, he sets out in search of him, but is having trouble finding him until he meets Isabella, a young woman who falls out of a high window. He saves her life and immediately feels drawn to her. Then she's mysteriously able to, not only lead him to his prey, but manage to kill the Transformed Demon. No one has ever heard of a human being able to kill a Demon, so Jacob takes Bella to his home in England, until he can figure out what manner of person she actually is. He quickly discovers that she seems to have other extraordinary powers that go beyond anything a mere human can do, and then she finds an old prophecy in the Demon library that appears to explain what she is. As they do their research, Jacob and Bella cannot deny the attraction between them, but knowing well what Demon law says about contact with humans, he tries to fight it. Soon, though, they come to realize they're fated mates who will die without one another. But the necromancers are still out there, searching for another Demon to Summon, and this time, Bella could end up as collateral damage.

Jacob wields the power of the Earth element and can manipulate matter. He has spent 400 of his over 600 years of life as the Enforcer. He's known for his ability to resist temptation, which is what earned him the job. However, those he's Enforced in the past aren't particularly happy about it, so for the most part, he's not someone with whom most fellow Demons want to be friends. Thus far, Jacob has never succumbed to the same lustful inclinations that other Demons seem to have around the times of the Hallowed Moon, so when he feels a powerful attraction to Isabella from the moment he meets her, it confounds him. Then when she performs the surprising tasks of leading him to the Transformed Demon and then defeating it, he knows he has to keep her with him until he figures out how she can do these extraordinary things. Knowing well the laws of his people, he fights the magnetic pull toward Bella. Even though he also senses that it's somehow different than what Demons usually experience during Hallowed Moons, he fears that his intense Demon lust might injure her if they make love. Then they find the prophecy that seems to indicate that they're fated to be together, and eventually he can no longer resist. Bella seems to be his perfect mate and partner in every way, but when the necromancers come for another Demon, Bella gets caught in their trap and Jacob must fight to get her back. Overall, Jacob is a pretty nice guy, but I couldn't help feeling like his character was underdeveloped. He's over 600 years old, but has very little backstory beyond being an Enforcer, which is said to be a rather solitary existence, yet this is never really shown. He has friends, and even those he's Enforced who appear in the story don't seem to hate him in spite of their relationships being a bit strained. We also learn little about his family or what he actually does to Enforce Demon laws beyond merely stopping his fellow Demons before they make contact with humans. It's implied that it's something unpleasant, but never specified. Because of these things, I struggled to make a deep connection with his character.

Isabella is a librarian who has always felt strangely drawn by the moon and nighttime, but has no idea why. One night while gazing out her fifth-story window at the moon, she sees a handsome man walking down the street, who calls up to her, asking if she's seen anything out of the ordinary. While answering him, she accidentally leans out too far and falls, but he miraculously catches her. Then she realizes that she can sense dark power nearby and leads him to the necromancer and a terrifying creature that she manages to kill. After that, Bella awakens in a castle with Jacob nearby. He and his friends explain what happened to her and that Nightwalkers, demons and other creatures of the night, actually do exist. As a librarian, she's fascinated with their extensive library of Demon knowledge and starts combing through their books in search of an answer for what she was able to do. Eventually she finds the prophecy that changes everything the Demons thought they knew about Demon and human relations and which seems to indicate that she and Jacob are fated to be together. Throughout all this time, Bella feels an uncontrollable attraction to Jacob, and even though he tries to avoid taking things further between them, she won't take no for an answer. Soon she discovers a connection to him unlike anything she could've imagined. But when Bella is caught by the necromancers, she must fight to keep herself and another demon she's befriended alive until Jacob can find them. Bella is a likable heroine who is a nice combination of sweet and sassy. However, just like Jacob, I felt like she was underdeveloped. She's a twenty-something, modern-day virgin, but there's no real explanation for that aside from a brief mention that she hadn't found the right guy. I also felt that she was way too readily accepting of all the extraordinary things that were happening to her and of the existence of Nightwalkers. She never really questions any of it, which wasn't entirely believable. Also like Jacob, she has little backstory to speak of. She has a sister but no other family is mentioned, so the reader is given no idea of where she might have come by her powers that manifest pretty quickly.

I recall hearing good things about the Nightwalkers series, so I'd been looking forward to trying it for some time. After reading Jacob, though, I can say that all the elements of the book showed a lot of promise, but I didn't feel like it fully followed through on the delivery. It started off really well, drawing me into the story, but after Jacob takes Bella back to his castle, things slowed down considerably. The next 250+ pages moved at a snail's pace with an overabundance of world-building and narrative exposition that didn't really propel the plot forward at all. This part was punctuated by the occasional occurrence of something a bit more exciting, but then it would go right back to plodding along until the last fifty pages or so, which brought the story to more a exhilarating conclusion. In addition to there not being a lot of excitement for a paranormal romance, I feel like to some extent the sluggish pace was caused by the writing itself. There were times that I played with sentence structures and discovered that the narration could have been much snappier if excess words and repetitiveness had been pared down.

In addition to the shaky characterizations, there were many areas of the book, which despite the excessive narration, were lacking in depth and detail. Not only was Bella too accepting of the sudden revelations in her own life, but pretty much all the characters were unbothered by these new developments. Jacob and the other Demon characters barely question the prophecy, or Bella's presence in their lives and her ability to do things they've not seen or heard of before. While the narration dragged along, the events happen almost too quickly with very little thought going into them. The relationship between Jacob and Bella is merely a fated mates/insta-love kind of romance that didn't entirely work for me. They basically just accept that they're supposed to be together, while there's virtually nothing in the way of commonalities or getting-to-know-you moments to bond them in a more emotional way. I felt some connection but not as strongly as I would have liked. Jacob is also said to have an uncontrollable lustful side that could cause Isabella injury, but he's never really anything but gentle with her. Even when things get more intense between them, it's still not much more than strong passion. Until the story opens, the necromancers haven't been seen in many years, but no explanation is given for why. They're also supposed to be extremely dangerous, and while a couple of minor characters do get killed, they're mostly a distant threat until the very end except for one brief incursion. Bottom line: I truly wanted to love Jacob but it ended up being kind of meh for me. I liked the characters and some of the story elements, but they really needed more polish to make it into a great story. That said, though, since I have nearly all the books in the series on my TBR pile, I'm sure I'll give it another chance to wow me at some point.

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Jacquelyn Frank

Themes

Geniuses, Scholars & Scientists aka Geeks - Heroines