REBORN YESTERDAY
Series: Phenomenal Fate #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Author: Tessa Bailey
Release Date: March 17, 2020
A timeless love story with bite.
It was a night like any other for funeral home director Ginny Lynn, until the exceptionally handsome—and unfortunately deceased—young man on her embalming table sat up, opened his emerald eyes and changed the course of her life
forever, making her feel quite fluttery while he was at it.Humans aren’t supposed to know Jonas Cantrell, or any vampire, exists. It’s kind of a major rule. Despite his instantaneous bond with perfectly peculiar Ginny, he has no choice but to erase her memories of their one and only meeting.
That was the plan. Before a reluctant Jonas can wipe Ginny’s mind clean, she reveals a secret that brings their worlds crashing together. Human and vampire. Past and present. Darkness and light. And while their love is strictly forbidden, it might be the
only thing that can save them…Reborn Yesterday is a standalone novel.
I’ve been thinking on my rating for this book for weeks. And now as I’m posting my review, I’m still torn. Did I like it? Kind of.
Here’s the thing, guys. I love and I mean LOVE all things Tessa Bailey. When I see a new Tessa book, I don’t even bother to read the blurb. I know I’ll be reading it. And when I saw that she’s writing in a new genre for her? I was ALL over it. But here’s another thing. PNR is my first love. It was THE genre that got me into romance. So to say that I’m picky when it comes to it would be a mild understatement. Perhaps that’s what played a big role in my feelings for this story? What I’m saying here is take my review with a grain of salt. Many readers really loved this one and clearly I’m the anomaly.
So what worked for me? The characters. They were adorable. I love me a quirky heroine and Ginny was adorkably quirky. She’s a mortician with a goofball personality that enjoys making clothes on the side. It was impossible not to bond with her immediately. As much as I also wanted to love Jonas, I sort of waffled on two sides. A part of me loved his edgy and somewhat tortured side. Another part of me got frustrated by his purple prose-y side. The man is a dirty talking anomaly. He sounded like he belonged in a Victorian novel rather than a modern age PNR. I suppose he was too sweet for me in parts. God, that hurts to say. Don’t judge me. But he was.
The other thing is that the story itself felt campy. The world was difficult to fully wrap my mind around. The characters got a bit confusing. It was all mostly very…underwhelming. It just didn’t grab me. It took me almost a week to finish because I had to push myself to keep reading in the hopes that it would pick up soon, but it never did. The pacing was simply too slow.
I loved the idea of the series and the concept of the story. Unfortunately it just lacked something to truly grab me and connect me to the story. It did grab me enough to want to read the next book in the series. The set-up sounds delicious. Unfortunately no matter how much you love a certain author, you simply can’t love all of their books. This was that one for me. I still adore Tessa and can’t wait for the next one in this series.
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