REVIEW: Ares' Temptation by Aubrie Dionne

Ares' Temptation by Aubrie Dionne
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Book Description: 

At the wedding of two Greek gods, Kaye Underhill is the only mortal in a sea of scantily clad nymphs and fickle satyrs. And worse — she’s dateless. The only bright side is the hot, muscled hunkiness of the God of War, who’s seated next to her. But there’s no way Kaye could ever grab a god’s attention... Is there?

Ares is in big trouble. A vengeful witch curses him, and the first person he touches will steal his strengths, while he receives their weaknesses. When Kaye trips, Ares catches her and poof! His powers disappear, and Kaye suddenly has the strength and coordination of a Greek god. To break the curse and regain his powers, Ares must get Kaye to fall in love with him.

But for the god who makes war, making love presents a whole new set of problems...

I’m a complete and total sucker for Greek God romances. Maybe it’s because I have a degree in History? Either way, when I see a romance with a Greek god (Particularly when it comes to Ares) I’m all over it. So I was extremely excited to get this from Netgalley.

I dived into this at the first available opportunity. Unfortunately I felt like I was dropped right into the middle of the story and that I’d missed something. So I went back to the author’s book list online to see if this was part of a series and if there was a first book. Now, I rely on GR for series info. I love that aspect of the site, but there was nothing. I went to the author’s site, and after clicking on everything, I saw a book with characters that are mentioned in the beginning of this book. Jackpot. Book 1. Typically I don’t mind reading books out of order, I’ve found some great series/books/authors that way, but I really hate being dropped into the center of a story and not knowing that it’s basically a continuation of a previous book but with different characters.

So, with that said, there was some confusion to start with. I also had issues with the overly formal speech from Ares. I love Ares. He’s definitely my favorite Greek God. (Hmmm, maybe that’s why I focused on military history in school? Anyway…) So I was definitely on his side. I initially found the heroine annoying. Based on the set up of the blurb, I couldn’t imagine how Ares would be able to tolerate spending time around her to make her fall in love with him. And of course, because it’s a romance, it stood to reason that he would also fall in love with her. I just didn’t like them together as a couple. I didn’t feel any real connection between them. But going back to the speech…I was surprised by his formal speech, and as much as I love Ares, it made it hard to connect to the character. The flip side of this is that while his overly formal speech bugged me, I hated it when she tried to change him and the way she went about it.

This book wasn’t awful. And maybe if I’d read book 1, I would have been more connected and invested in Kaye’s HEA. But this just didn’t work for me and that sucks because I was looking forward to a good Ares romance.


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