Samson's Lovely Mortal (Scanguards Vampires #1) Paperback – November 27, 2014

~* 3.5 Stars *~Vampire Samson Woodford is a rich, powerful, debonair male who owns a nationwide security company that has both vampire and human interests. He also has a bit of a problem with erectile dysfunction and despite the psychiatric help he's reluctantly receiving, there seems to be no help in that area. To say he's frustrated would be a gross understatement on every level.Forensic accountant Delilah Sheridan is an independent contractor from New York. She's in San Francisco auditing a private company's financial records and has been burning the candle at both ends since she arrived a few days ago, investigating some discrepancies she's discovered. Leaving the office late one night, she stops for some take out and gets caught in a downpour. She gets a little turned around in the rain in her rush back to the company condo in which she's staying, and before she can find her way, she's attacked by a scarred, hulking brute of a man that comes at her from a dark alley. Delilah manages to escape, racing to the nearest house she can find and pounding on the door before falling into the arms of Samson Woodford when he opens it.Confusion and mistakes abound, and Samson, thinking Delilah is the stripper his good friends have gotten him for his birthday, takes advantage of the situation to kiss the wet and slightly bedraggled human - and is stunned when his body responds with much enthusiasm. He is stunned again when he realizes that Delilah is, in fact, not a stripper, but a woman in need of his help. Not the most auspicious of beginnings, for sure.Focused on his body's response to her, and as it turns out, only her, he sets out to charm the human and release his sexual frustrations. But just when he realizes that his interest in the human extends beyond physical gratification and into something much deeper, he's beset by an old enemy out to take everything from him - including Delilah. Saving her life may come at the cost of her feelings for him when she finds out he's technically her boss...and not human. Samson's Lovely Mortal  has a decent, if slightly formulaic paranormal romance plot, but it is in the details that Tina Folsom's series starts to shine. I really enjoy what she's created with the vampires with issues - and impotence is one dastardly issue - and the glimpse into the various psychosis that draw them to seek therapy. She also adds a nice touch of humor (the shrink's couch is a coffin!) here and there that lighten up the tone of the book.Samson is a strong romantic lead, with just the right touch of self assured arrogance overlaying vulnerability. I found him surprisingly layered with his insecurities about women and his inability to perform. His obliviousness to the depth of his feelings for Delilah was thankfully brief, and his mangled approach to it was at turns charming and cute. I was less pleased with Delilah, who I just didn't find all that interesting a character, but I'm used to favoring the alpha males over the female leads so that's not much of a surprise. I did like some of her development in the latter part of the book, and she didn't annoy me as so many do, so that's a plus.The plot was well conceived and flowed nicely from point to point through the book after what was an extremely abrupt and awkward opening chapter. There were, however, several grammatical issues and some other errors that should have been caught. The narrative lacked a bit of polish as a result. Band Aid is a name brand for adhesive bandages, not what bandages themselves are called, for example, and fingernails don't have sockets from which they can be pulled. On the other hand, the dialogue had a nice conversational flow despite some word tense issues and some misplaced words.The sex scenes were well written, and to my preference of being described with adult language as opposed to being couched in flowery euphemism. They were graphic, but not exceptionally explicit, in my opinion. There were several of them (that's information, not a complaint) but they never overwhelmed the plot or knocked the flow of the story off balance. At least not the sex scenes between Samson and Delilah. There was one between two secondary characters that, while well written, I felt seemed unnecessary to the plot and out of place in context. As a result, it seemed to serve a purpose only for titillation - especially considering the nature of the sex - and while I believe that has its place, it did nothing for me in this instance.There are a lot of good points to Tina Folsom's series starter. I've purchased the second in the series,  Amaury's Hellion (Scanguards Vampires) , and as readers have been introduced to his issues in this book, I'm actually quite interested in seeing how they're worked out and who the lucky lady will be who will stir his emotions.  Samson's Lovely Mortal  may not have been flawless, but it was a solid start to a potentially very imaginative series, despite the issues. I'm quite glad I stumbled across it and look forward to seeing the series continue.Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.

So hot so much love so much violence. I just love this book so much. I'd say this is my 10th time reading this story, and it never gets old.

I've had this book both in Kindle and Audible formats for some time now, but never got around to reading it until now. I started it mainly as something easy to listen to while at work that wouldn't require me to pay complete attention to it for fear of missing something. I was expecting it to be mainly sex wrapped up in some sort of thin plot, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was much more than that. It may not seem so at first, for it has a very memorable first line, but if you stay with it a bit you soon see that this book has some meat to it besides the manly kind. Staying with it isn't a problem, for the humor in the writing that's apparent from page one keeps it quite entertaining from the start.Delilah is a wonderfully spunky character who is something of a study in contrasts, at least on the surface. She's clearly quite brilliant and has made a name for herself as a top notch auditor, yet she is so directionally challenged that she gets lost trying to walk the few blocks from a Chinese takeout restaurant to the corporate apartment she's staying in and often seems rather oblivious to the potential dangers of being a woman walking alone at night (this part is rather hard to believe in my opinion since she supposedly lives in New York City and not rural Kansas or somesuch place where urban dangers would be a foreign thing to her). She thinks of herself as being boring and uninteresting because of her profession, yet she clearly has more of a sense of adventure than she gives herself credit for in the way she so readily accepts Samson's invitation to the theatre after an inauspicious first encounter with him and gives as good as she gets in the flirtation game they engage in during the ride there. Seeing her finally gain complete self-confidence during the course of the book is one of the more satisfying elements of how it ends.Samson is very alpha, but also very caring and tender-hearted. He is every inch a gentleman, particularly with Delilah, but he also has a vicious and unforgiving side to his personality as well that is seen in brief outbursts at times. We gradually learn about his history from the hardships he faced early in life that brought him to America as a young man, to the heartbreak and betrayal he experienced much more recently that led to the problem he has at the beginning of the book. He doesn't really try to deny what he feels for Delilah once he realize it himself, nor does he ever really play the "she's too good for me" or "I'm a monster, she's better off without me" game that's often too common with caring vamps like Samson (except perhaps slightly at the very beginning before he talks to the doctor about her), and that is a major plus in my book for I always find that to be a turnoff.The story easily held my attention from beginning to end, and despite often being distracted to a greater or lesser extent with work stuff I was doing I had no problem following along with it. I guessed who was behind the attacks on Delilah relatively early on, but it didn't hamper my enjoyment of watching the plot unfold and listening to find out how the characters in the book would figure out whodunnit. It played out mostly as expected, though there was a twist to the ended that I didn't expect and wonder if what happened there will come back to bite them in the future. Besides the whodunnit plotline, the romance between Samson and Delilah plays out pretty much as you'd expect as well, with plenty of hot sex and and few misunderstandings thrown in to keep it interesting. I did think Delilah was overly "OMG he's a vampire! ack!" when she finds out about Samson and friends, and holds onto that "he's a vampire therefore he must be a monster" mindset rather too long even when given plenty of evidence to the contrary. I would have thought she'd have gotten over it far more quickly given her intelligence, but it just goes to show that blind panic can short circuit even the smartest person's brain at times.Overall I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who's a fan of paranormal romance, and of vampire romance in particular, so long as you're not easily offended by sex scenes that are often rather graphic (but hot!). I'll definitely be reading or listening to the rest of the series as soon as I'm able to (which might be awhile). 4 solid stars to a highly entertaining story.

No plot spoilersNo potential triggersThere are a few errors but nothing to get irritated aboutI don't recall any swearingThere are a couple of sex scenes lightly written.The characterisation is okay, but there were points I thought the FC too stupid to live and the character traits just a tad too formulaic to be believable.For me, I almost got rid of the book with the first paragraph because it was very crudely written but I persevered and it did get better apart from a scene with Amoury.There is romance but with all the lies it's hard to keep it all on track.I don't think I will be purchasing the next book in the series, but if you are a fan of the genre I expect you would probably enjoy the book.

You know you're not going to enjoy a book when the opening scene (pg 1, paragraph 1!) is a graphic description of a blow job, from a nameless female (no character development here - the poor thing is red lipstick on a blow up doll).This "vampire" story continues in much the same vein (pun intended). The plot is paper thin. Most characters aren't developed, and those that all are bog-standard - the vampires are essentially frat boys and city-boy types. Seriously, what is the point in peopling a novel with non-human types when they all act and think like normal humans? It renders the supernatural elements redundant. I really wish more authors would put some imagination and effort into their character building. What would being hundreds of years old do to your personality? Having to kill others just to survive? Having seen it all a million times before? All these things would leave a mark.... But nope. We just get city-boys and frat-boys, and a tacked-on white collar crime plot.This book just doesn't work for me as a supernatural romance, nor as a romantic suspense novel. The plot and characters are just too shallow, and the sex scenes too porny and boring.

I have lost count of how many times I have read this book. I love it and the others in the series. Amazing, fantastic, bloody brilliant. Good my friends that like this sort of book and they too have now got and read the series.Thank you Tina for such wonderful stories.Warm socially distanced hugsShani x

This is a book about Samson and Delilah but if you're after the bible story? THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT IT. I was in the mood for a sexy, vampire book so I did what any sensible woman would do - I asked twitter and I googled. I actually found this book on a Goodreads list and as it was number one in said list, it had to be good, right?I can sum this book up in just four words for you...crap title, good book.This book does what it says on the tin. It's entertaining, it's steamy in parts and I really enjoyed the tongue in cheekness of the storyline. Samson is the strong, rich, good looking vampire and owner of Scanguards Security. He's well respected in the vampire community and so he doesn't want his little secret of not being able to get it up, getting out for fear of being a laughing stock. I mean, who has ever heard of a vampire with erectile dysfunction?! His little problem seems to disappear however when he stumbles across Delilah but there's just one problem - she's mortal and every moment she spends with him is potentially dangerous. Not just for her life but also for her heart. Throw in the fact that she's auditing his company and has found some suspicious behaviour among the books, which points to the fact that there is a traitor in the midst. And said traitor is not going down without a fight. The answer is simple, get rid of the auditor. Yeah, not with Samson around thank you very much *swoons*.I really enjoyed reading this book and I loved ALL the characters, particularly the bunch of hot vampire guys that are Samson's friends (well, who wouldn't?!) and I'm delighted to tell you that this book is part of a seven book series with each guy pretty much getting a turn in the spotlight.I have to tell you something funny before I finish this review. I'd read one reviewer say that this book grabbed her by the very first line. Now, as an aspiring writer I'm very much interested in hooks and first lines but when I read the first line, I laughed out loud. Indeed, the reviewer was right and I'm not knocking the opening line, I just didn't expect it to be THAT. You'll see ;)If you're after a hot, entertaining vampire story, then this is definitely the book for you.

I would actually give it 3.5 stars. It was an enjoyable read with lots of sexy stuff and the story was quite fast paced too. I didn't give it 4 stars because I found some bits just too far fetched (even for a vampire/paranormal romance!) like the vending machine with bottled blood (I'll have a V8; no make that an O Positive!) and that humans can live forever as long as their blood bonded vampire partner remains alive - oh, okay, no point in becoming a vampire too, then. And I found Samson a tad too soppy with his emotions, right to the last chapter like when he tells her why they now need a big house; I guess I prefer my male vampires to be dark and broody, flawed but sexy. Samson comes across as a bit too 'metrosexual male' to me, but I guess being a rich, good looking vampire with a man servant in San Francisco certainly appeals to a certain segment of the market. But it's a sweet story (I found the bit where Samson arranges for Delilah to speak to her dad very touching) and I am going to ready the next book in this series.