Vulnerable

5 Hearts reviewed by Zane

I met Corinne CarolAnne Kirkpatrick for the very first time a few years back, shortly after I discovered this wonderful writer I’d never heard of, Amy Lane. Needless to say I fell for them both pretty hard.

Corinne – no – I’ll call her Cory… Cory is the everyday girl. She’s the not so pretty, the not so popular, not the smartest, she’s, well. Average, to herself at least. And everything around her is average. Until one day Adrian steps into her orbit, and changes her life. He opens her eyes and her world, brings color to her monochrome, and from that moment on she is changed. And it happens in “Vulnerable” as we’d hope and dream it would happen in life – love changed everything, and brought inner beauty to life and light to be seen on the outside.

Adrian. The vampire. The catalyst. He’s from Green’s Hill. I cannot even begin to express or explain the beauty and magic that is Green’s Hill, other than to say it is home. Soon to be Cory’s home. Home to Adrian, to Green. Green, the Sidhe who loves, nurtures, heals and protects all of his ‘family’ as needed and wanted. By family I mean vampires, faeries, elves, and more. Green’s Hill is home to a large cast of characters, all with pivotal roles in Cory’s life. It is Green and Adrian (and then others) who first teach Cory what true love, true power and true family are.

“Vulnerable” is epic fantasy. It speaks to everything the heart desires. Witness the battle between good and evil. Love, romance, betrayal. Sex. Angst and Pain, my friends, now synonymous with Amy Lane. This may have been the author’s first book, but it’s obvious she’s had a knack for it from the start, as evidenced every time she kicked my gut in and stomped on my heart. Cory didn’t transform from little girl lost to Goddess found without her share of heartache.

Beyond that, there is such love here. Love of life, love of family, love of self. And of course, romantic love. Yes, there is sensual/sexual love, and oh, how amazingly it is written. This is not your traditional love story, but make no mistake, a love story is what this is. If you keep an open mind and an open heart (and lots of tissues), you will find yourself easily swept up into the world of Cory, Adrian, Green and their loved ones, perhaps like me, with no desire to return to reality.

The world building here is fantastic and belies the fact that this is Ms. Lane’s first published effort. Perhaps, when I first met Cory, she needed a little editing. That didn’t make her any less wonderful or beautiful to me. This, the second edition may have tightened things up, but the core, the base is still the same. But some time had passed since I last visited. I’d forgotten. Forgotten how much I loved this beautiful world and those in it. So now here I am. I’ve fallen in love with the Goddess once more…I am going to need to read the rest of the series again. And her author?

Amy is a master at her craft; she paints such vivid pictures with her words. Her use of language is so evocative, and incites emotion like none other. Simply put, I will gladly let Ms. Lane rip me apart and leave me a puddled mess on the floor every time, because she does it that beautifully. Her characters are some of the most broken, and yet some of the strongest I’ve ever read. I have said it before, and I will say it again. If Amy Lane writes it, I will read it. So I invite you to read this, the one that started it all. And then wait a spell with me… because Cory’s getting another book, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she has to say.