Proceed With Caution:
This book contains blood, death, gore, violence, torture, discussions of suicide and attempted murder.
The Basics:
Once Burned is narrated by twenty-six-year-old Leila, a woman with unusual abilities. After an accident, she now has electricity coursing through her which makes her skin deadly. Not only that, but she can see your past, present, or future with just one touch. AND she can get impressions from objects. Needless to say, this is a coveted ability and soon Leila is kidnapped by vampires but rescued by another.
My Thoughts:
It took me way too long to finally get to Once Burned, and now I've read it twice. I wished I had read it earlier, because I really enjoyed it! Despite that cover, this is not a Paranormal Romance. Yes, it's paranormal, and there is some romance, but it's heavily plot driven. In fact, Leila and Vlad are not in love by the end (sorry!), although they do have plenty of sex during lulls in the action.
There were a couple of things that kept me from loving Once Burned though. The first is Leila's ability. It's described two different ways throughout, and I was never sure which is actually accurate. Her touch picks up the essence of a person from objects they've touched, or just from direct contact with their skin, and she sees them in the past, but can also track them in the present, and occasionally catch glimpses of their future. Other times, she describes her gift as seeing that person's worst sin.
It's a bit confusing as to what her actual ability is, but for the plot's purpose, it's used for tracking. It does become more clear as the series goes on, since we get to see the true extent of her abilities. I think for this first book, it just wasn't clear because Leila herself doesn't know all that she's capable of, and really has very little control over what she sees. She's essentially overpowered but doesn't know what to do with it.
The second problem I had was why Leila was kidnapped in the first place. The vampires who grab her work for another, more powerful vampire, whom we don't meet until later. Of course, this vampire had to have connections to Vlad for plot purposes. However, Leila was first kidnapped to track Vlad, but he rescues her and uses her himself. But then the evil mastermind still wants her later, but it turned out that he doesn't even need her to track Vlad. So...I'm confused. It was a convoluted mess to get Leila and Vlad together and fighting against the same enemy, I guess.
Despite those issues, I had a lot of fun reading Once Burned. Leila was great. She's not some helpless damsel, but she's also not totally all powerful and badass. Things definitely go very wrong for her at times and she has to get rescued. Vlad was great, as always, and it's nice to get to know him on a more personal level. I did miss some of his humor that we've seen in previous books though.