College junior Jill Babineux knows where her priorities lie. Between a full course load, her blood pledge to feed a certain vampire, and all the community service hours she’s got to log with her sisters in Alpha Beta Omega Sorority, the last thing on her mind is finding love, especially with an immortal.
Which works out just fine for Miyoko “Tokyo” Hayashi who’s been so busy enjoying her wild days and even kinkier nights, she’s never had a reason to speak to the tiny know-it-all. But after a random run-in and a few carefully plotted encounters, Miyoko learns that there’s more to the sorority’s least favorite member.
Miyoko never thought she’d actually start to like the girl, let alone love her, but when true evil comes for Jill, Miyoko finds herself willing to do anything to protect her. Anything.
After years of meddling in her friends’ love lives, Rebekah Weatherspoon turned to writing romance to get her fix. Raised in Southern New Hampshire, Rebekah Weatherspoon now lives in Southern California where she will remain forever because she hates moving.
Her BDSM romance At Her Feet won the Golden Crown Literary Award for erotic lesbian fiction. Her novella FIT (#1 in the FIT Trilogy) won the Romantic Times Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Erotica Novella, SATED (#3 in the FIT Trilogy) was nominated for the the Romantic Times Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Digital Erotic Romance and most recently SOUL TO KEEP VSS#3 won the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Erotica.
Her 2018 romantic comedy RAFE: A Buff Male Nanny received praise from both Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. You can look for her most recent romantic comedy XENI : A Marriage of Inconvenience now, and a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, A COWBOY TO REMEMBER, late February 2020 from Kensington Books. In the meant time, you can find Rebekah and her books on twitter at @rdotspoon and her website www.rebekahweatherspoon.com,
Thrilling series! This 3rd installment continue with a lovely group of vampires who likes to play dangerous games that leads to a nice plot twist in the storyline and also good storytelling by the author plus enjoy the bond between the girls because readers can feel all the sexual tension going on whenever any connection or biting between them. Interesting,entertaining and very creative energy from the first page to very last page..recommend to everyone
This is Jill Babineux's story and it's one I've avoided because I really didn't like Jill as a character in the previous installments. I left it long enough that I couldn't remember why I disliked her so much. I found I really liked her in Soul to Keep and I loved her spunk and oddness. I liked that Tokyo was an outsider too.
Jill is trying to get the university to put a series of sexual health lectures in to place and while she's busy work on them one evening Tokyo takes an interest. Some of Tokyo's suggestions make her realise how much needs to be done.
Parts of the story line were interesting and engaging but there were a whole lot of things that really bothered me. Ginger was portrayed as quite an awful person and I didn't really see the need to do that. My favourite book in the series was Better Off Red where Ginger was the main character and I'm sure she wasn't this person then. Jill lives in house full of people who are pretty mean to her, so any one of them would've have done as the nasty character.
I also found there was a lack of newness or excitement in the story. In Better Off Red the whole environment was new and the relationships, and feedings, were sexy and erotic. Here, those scenes/descriptions lost some of their shine. Too much was assumed and glossed-over in passing. I guess, once I realised I quite liked Jill and Tokyo, I hope for so much more.
This was...a ride! I'm not entirely sure how to rate and review this one, but here goes.
Soul to Keep is an erotic romance involving a sorority of lesbian & bisexual vampires and their bloodbound feeders. In some ways it is over the top with the tropes and overt sexuality. It also has some scenes of the MC being introduced to BDSM and kinky sex that are pretty out there, at least for me, and a kind of weird scene involving the vampire love interest being able to shape shift body parts. So for those who follow me, definitely not my usual cup of tea in the genre, but useful as part of a reading project I'm working on. I will say, the tone of this is light and silly with a heavy emphasis on the importance of consent, so even the more out there sexual things didn't feel gross or traumatic and rather offer a sex positive view of things some people might be into. And buried in there, is a surprisingly sweet love story about two outsiders finding each other that includes a fake dating trope.
If you read this book apart from the first two in the series you would probably enjoy it much more than I did. I soooo wanted to like this book. After reading the 1st two I expected & hoped for more. Although on the surface Jill was not very likable, I liked how some of that was shown to be a defense mechanism & I liked how she and Tokyo were able to be their true selves with each other. The sweetness of their relationship when it was just the two of them with their guards down made the book readable for me.
The 2 issues for me came with the peripheral characters and the undeveloped story line. The 180 degree turn of Ginger's personality was awful. She was completely unlikable in this book while pretty lovable in the first two. Her hatred of Tokyo was unfounded and way too intense for their short association. I understood she might not like another vampire being involved with her feeder but she was over the top before that relationship happened and it isn't like that kind of relationship is unheard of in their world. Also why would Omi hate Tokyo? Book 2 portrayed her as loving and understanding. Cleo was a much larger brat and headache in book 2 and Omi kindly loved her through that but none of that could be extended to Tokyo? A vampire she has probably known for 20+ years? And why is Camila so docile? I get that Ginger now technically outranks her but come on! I fell in love with her strength in book one (i.e. her altercation with Moreland) and hated seeing her basically become Ginger's yes man and sex toy in this book. In the first two books, the sorority girls might not have always liked each other but most were extremely loving and those that weren't were at least respectful to each other. It was mentioned several times that that drew some of the girls in even if the overall thought of the sorority/ feeding vampires wasn't appealing to them. It felt like these character changes were made to develop a plot but I wished it was developed differently.
The whole "demon possession" plotline had potential but fizzled out in a very unsatisfying way. There was no explanation for why this was happening. It seemed as though the story was working toward a big reveal but just died on the vine. Where was Dalhem during the final confrontation? Why would he send Cleo whom he HATED & who hated him in book 2? Especially considering that Tokyo was one of his most cherished queens & after he said that Jill was special? No Paeno? This HUGE threat is happening and the 2 most power demon-bournes are almost completely hands off? No explanation for how the Tokyo problem was resolved. Just a "my tongue physically can't do it"? What is Tokyo now? There was so much more to explain and explore and it was disappointing to finish the book with a WTF.
I have read almost every book in Rebekah Weatherspoon's catalogue and generally enjoy her and will read whatever she gives us next but I was let down by this one. I recommend either reading Better Off Red and stopping there or trying to read each book as separate from each other.
I liked this one a whole lot. Rebekah Weatherspoon's character work is the strongest part of this book.
I haven't read the others in the series in years so I forgot who some of the characters were, but that was okay. I was surprised by how much I hated Ginger, especially since she was one of the leads in the first book.
This book is a lot of fun, super dirty, with big feelings. I'm glad Rebekah Weatherspoon is still writing ff, because as good as her straight romances are, she was one of the first lesbian romance authors I read, so her ladies have a spot spot in my heart.
‘Soul to Keep’ is the third book in a series about vampires and demons, college life, and the Alpha Beta Omega Sorority. And while the two main women in each book are different, the underlying story does connect them enough that I would recommend reading ‘Better Off Red’ and ‘Blacker than Blue’ before turning to this volume. As with the previous installments, I loved the depth and richness of the characters, the extremely well-built world that included some details of vampire feeding that made me shudder, and added to that was an unusual relationship that started as no more than an experiment. Hilarious!
Jill is a quirky character with two guys as her parents. She is a college junior with clear priorities, who has appeared before and always seemed just a little too organized, a touch too dedicated, and a bit of a snob. It appears that almost no one likes Jill, but I never really understood where all that animosity came from. There’s nothing wrong with dedication in my book! But I could see why she was not looking for love, or expecting to find anyone romantically interested in her. Her intention to put together a sexual health curriculum that will change the campus is what attracts Tokyo’s attention. Intriguing!
Tokyo is an even quirkier character than Jill, a vampire, and wilder than most members of the Alpha Beta Omega Sorority. In a word, pretty much the opposite of Jill. Tokyo knows a lot about relationships and figures that Jill needs help with the “practical” side of her project. The two embark on a secret relationship, all to help Jill find the missing pieces in her project, of course. But the “experiment” soon becomes more, and I enjoyed watching these two become much closer than they had originally intended. Unexpectedly amusing!
Oh, and the demon is back and creates some mayhem. I loved how that part of the plot was solved. There are too many entertaining scenes, fascinating revelations about vampires and their habits, and very hot encounters for me to talk about, but I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy discovering them all for yourself. A highly entertaining book that I‘d recommend to any and all fans of vampires and college life. Wonderful!
NOTE: This book was provided by Bold Strokes Books for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews
**I received a free eARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**
Let me just start by saying that I hadn't read the first two books in the series before this one, so I didn't know what to expect, but I never really got lost or felt like there was some information missing, so it was fine reading it as a stand-alone.
Now to the review...
I actually found the whole vampire feeding thing really interesting, basically there are frats and sororities, and the people who belong to them have to feed the vampires of the house, who are in charge of the place. But each person can only feed the vampire they're bound to, if they're bitten by another one, they die.
It was also very fun to see them try to solve a mysterious case about feeders being murdered, and demons possessing them. And vampires have really cool superpowers, like being able to wipe people's memories or even shape shifting.
But something I didn't like that much was that most people's lives seemed to revolve around sex. They were all "let's just Netflix and chill" all the time with everybody, even if they were already in a relationship. There's actually a lot of talk about sex, although it's usually just that (and not very relevant, really), since most stuff happens behind closed doors.
Tokyo's and Jill's relationship was sweet, but at some point I actually realized that I never liked Jill very much. Tokyo was cooler though, and her past is very interesting. This was a big change for me, since I usually like laid-back and serious characters like Jill, and can't stand crazy ones like Tokyo, so that was very nice. But I don't know, with all the feedings and the whole "let's just have sex with everyone" thing, I felt like there was something missing between the two.
3.5 stars. I received a copy of this book from Inked Rainbow Reads in return for an honest review. It kills me to rate this book this low. I don't particularly like vampires, and tend to stay away from them in my fiction. This book, however, totally drew me in, engaging me in the story and making me care about the characters. I love Jill. I love Tokyo. They're awesome. The vampire aspect of the book was done in a way that, while it was a focus of the story, didn't overwhelm me with how wonderful and sexy a group of beings are that ultimately see humans as cattle (i.e. a food source). This book totally had me within its grasp, like a potential groupie listening to the first set of their new favorite band. Jill is the type of character I like, because yes, people don't like her. She's brusque, she isn't social, she doesn't tend to like the superficial type of things that a group of girls in a sorority bond over. She's serious, especially about her schoolwork. She doesn't trust easily, doesn't forgive or forget easily, and won't play the game just to get people to like her. But if you can get beyond those shields, if you can see her passion and intelligence and caring, then she's a wonderful person. Tokyo is much the same. The other vampires in the house don't like her. She tends to not take things seriously, tends to dismiss Ginger's concerns. And that's understandable to me. Here you have someone who has been alive for a bit more than 150 years, and more than half of that was as a human. And then she's put under the authority of someone less than 1/5th as old as she is, who has only been a vampire for three years. That's like letting the boy king rule. Yes, Ginger has the power, but she's so very young and everything matters to her. So I understand Tokyo blowing her off at times. That makes Tokyo an outsider of sorts. Add in Moreland and her tastes, and the fact that it seems like every other vampire there is paired off, and Tokyo becomes more and more of a misfit. I love stories where two misfits seem to fit together. And the story of these two falling for each other was sweet and romantic. I will say that I'm of two minds about the first two books in this series. I really, really want to read them, but at the same time, Ginger was kind of a dick in this book so now I'm not sure if I do want to read them. I totally agreed with Jill about how Ginger treated her, and I understood all her reasons not to switch her blood bond to Tokyo. I cheered for Jill at the end, when she refused to rebond to Ginger. But this brings me to the reason I rated the book so low. I hated the ending. It's hard to discuss the things that happened at the end without giving a big spoiler, so this will necessarily be vague and kind of unfocused. The ending feels like a cheat. There isn't any real explanation for why things happened the way they happened. But it breaks the rules. And if you break the rules, you should have a really good explanation for how and why those rules were broken. Instead we're left with a lame explanation of "I got another chance (but we don't know why) and I can't actually say what happened (because we really aren't supposed to know what happened so it's physically impossible for the words to come out of her mouth)." It seemed to me that this was really the only way for the story to end, because Weatherspoon kind of wrote herself into a trap with no way out. And maybe that ending was her intention all along. But it feels too pat and convenient for me. I still have really mixed feelings about it.
I could not finishing reading this book. Why? Because all the characters are incredibly annoying and somewhat immature. I was able to tolerate, even like the first book in this series but after that it kept going downhill. The main issue is that none of the main characters that the author chooses to explore are likeable. Whenever a character is introduced the author goes out of her way to tell us quite literally that this character is annoying and most of the supporting characters that interact with them will go on and on about how annoying this character is. One of the main character in this book is even bullied a little because of how annoying she is. Also characters are sometimes introduced as not very physically attractive and the book will keep mentioning that. So the author hits us over the head repeatedly with how annoying and not very attractive a character is and then somewhere along the way she tries to switch it up and make these 'defects' attractive but its not convincing to me, I've already been convinced otherwise.
I loved book 1, skipped book 2, and found book3 kinda weird. My favorite character has always been Camilla (I'd definitely love a book from her pov), but I loved how fun Tokyo was. She made me laugh all the time. One thing I didn't like about book 3 was that it made Ginger seem like a terrible control freak, and Camilla by association. Maybe something happened in book 2 that I missed, but the character change was just too much. I mean, the entire book one was from her pov, and she wasn't intolerable back then. It was like the author just wanted us to hate her. Soul to Keep had the potential to be somewhat good, but the ending was so rushed and confusing that I'm still wondering what the heck happened to the Author (you'd think that it was a different person that wrote this book). I guess I'll just have to add it to the growing pile of series that should have just stopped at the first book.
I din't know how to explain this one I've read the previous books in this series but this one felt kind of weird and some things not explained well. For instance the whole coming back as a mortal (Tokyo) and the demon that had reside in Jill. We know he as cast out of her but what struggle did Tokyo have to endure, did have anything to do with her being able to come back.
Arc given by NetGalley for a honest review 3.5 stars
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I read this book before I read the first in the series, as this is the order in which they were available online for me. This was better than the first - more believable (once you get past the whole vampire thing, of course), but it made me curious about the origin story of the vampires and was harder to read on its own without some of the missing details filled in.
I liked it far more than Blacker than Blue and maybe more than Better off Red too, in some aspects. It was really interesting to get to know the same characters in such a different light, thanks to the switch in viewpoint. Okay, Ginger felt overly annoying compared to the first book, but well, she’s flawed, and it’s also what makes her interesting to read about. I don’t get where her dislike for Tokyo came from, though.
I loved, loved the fact that we got a totally different perspective on Moreland. The way Ginger was instinctively revolted the first time she met her bugged me, so it was nice to get the other side of the coin. I guess Ginger always had a tendency to judge quickly, so it makes sense that her new responsibilities somehow worsened this trait in her. I wish that she didn’t take everything Camilla told her for granted.
The first two books made me want to know more about Tokyo, and I never understood why everybody was giving Jill such a hard time — I guess it’s just typical sorority shit. I was eager to have a whole book following them and I wasn’t disappointed. The relationship between those though was perfect, the sweetest of them all. Jill is a truly unique character. Very down to earth. Her analytical perspective really bled into the writing, which made it all the more enticing. Tokyo annoyed me in the beginning, cause it seemed like she didn’t give a shit about anything but her leisure time, but she quickly became one of the most attentive vampires in the house (again, I feel like some character evolution in this series happens without any legitimate reasons. It’s less flagrant there than it was with Cloe and Benny’s relationship, but it’s still strange).
I don’t like the ending that much. Whatever the hell happened there, it felt a little bit like cheating, and there was no resolution to the plot at all. I already felt like that reading Blacker than Blue, and it’s even more frustrating with this one. If the author only wanted to write a romance, she could have done so, there was no need to bother with a side story.
This book was a pleasant surprise because I wasn't expecting it to be so fluffy in a lot of scenes since the premise is very angst-inducing.
Going into this book without having read the other two books, I can't say how Jill and Tokyo were in the other books, but I really enjoyed both of their characters. They're more of the unlikable type upon first meeting, but I loved how Weatherspoon fleshed out the characters, especially Jill, whose honesty was blunt and refreshing.
Despite the fact that Jill is seen as the chatty annoying girl, I clicked with her pretty early, from seeing her struggles between the blood bond obligations and her discordance with a lot of the other girls because of her personality. Tokyo was a tougher shell because of her party girl shallow shell she inhibits, but once she dropped that front around Jill, I was sold. They really are so cute together and I loved how you get little hints and scenes where they're being supportive and loyal.
The sub-plot besides the romance was really interesting too, even if it wasn't delved super in depth, and I really think the vampire sorority setup works really nicely.
There was one wild scene and the ending might seem a little tidy, but honestly I adored the dynamic overall between Jill and Tokyo (they're so soft and sweet together) that it didn't really bother me that much.
Side note: I'm a little sad I read this one first because I don't think I can go back and read Ginger's book at all now because of the bias I have since I love Tokyo and Jill so much haha.
*sigh* *heart-eyes* This is probably my favorite of the series in terms of pacing and tone.
Weatherspoon doesn't shy away from depicting the interpersonal problems of living in a sorority house and serving a bunch of vampires, and that drama never feels petty. Rather, the way she handles her characters' emotional lives feels profound and truthful - people can get hurt even if you didn't mean to hurt them, having authority doesn't mean you are mature, and as Jill points out in the book itself, being right doesn't mean you are being kind or good. One of my favorite things about this series is the fact that the 'villains' of the previous book are usually the main characters of the next, truly highlighting the fact that sometimes people don't agree and both of them can be right (at the same time, both of them can be wrong). And sometimes people just don't like each other, and that doesn't mean that one of them has the moral high ground. I almost wish these books were appropriate for high schoolers, because they have such amazing content regarding taking care of yourself, emotions, and dealing with others.
The love story is incredible and sweet and so very satisfying, particularly because Jill learns to honor her own desire for love and companionship, and also develops some really healthy wonderful boundaries. Some parts were wildly unrealistic and I had to remind myself that this is romance and that the HEA (or HFN) comes first, regardless of how many 'rules' of believability are being bent in the process :)
I didn’t finish reading this book but I read enough. I am so disappointed in it that I have to write a review, which is something I never do. “Soul to Keep” was the first book of the series that I read the summary, I think I found it somewhere on amazon and was really interested in the plot, but when I saw it was part of a series I decided to read the first two books. It was a mistake. And it also wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a mistake because I loved the first book “Better of Red”, I fell in love with the main characters Ginger and Camila, and their love story and it’s honestly a book I’d read again. I didn’t love the second book because Cleo wasn’t a very likeable character and Benny also had her bad moments but it was an alright book. But it was a mistake because in “Soul to Keep” Ginger was, to put it lightly, a major bitch, and so was Camila, by association, and that did not sit well with me. I quite liked Jill’s character at times, I felt bad for her in the second book and in the third I think she had some really good moments. Tokyo, however, was a really annoying character, I understand her being over the whole sorority thing and all her duties and responsibilities there, but I hated her character in this book, she was annoying, at best, in “Blacker than Blue” but she definitely outdid herself in this one. I was just so excited to read this book and it really let me down and I had to say something.
I'd read the other books in this series, and loved them, but this book was harder for me to get into at first. Jill was something of an annoying, goody two-shoes, top scholar type, not even well liked within the sorority. Tokyo was also something of a loner, brusque and impatient.
But as the story progressed, I began to see hints that made me fall for both characters, to root for them, and their romance. Disclaimer: I am personally acquainted with the author. The erotic parts are excellent, as always in Rebekah's work.
Since it had been a few years since I'd read the others, it felt almost like reading it as a standalone, and IMO it works that way. The world building is enough without being excessive, and there were new tips and tricks to this vampire world that surprised me, as well as some zigs and zags in how Jill and Miyoko (Tokyo) reached their Happily For Now.
I loved Better off Red, and actually devoured the whole thing in a day, and then read it the next day again. I was excited for the rest of the series. I should have know it was diving downhill after the second book, when Jill needed to be told off by Sam for harassing Benny. And Ginger all of a sudden was okay with sleeping with her feeders, or letting Camilla sleep with hers. No way would book one Red do that. But By book 3 we’ve entered into a whole character assassination of Ginger and her wife. Suddenly all the things that were bad in two doubled down in three. Lots of bdsm, not much romance, and a complete disservice to a fan base. Looking up the author she seems to have switched to straight fiction, which storytelling is more lackluster. Would really not recommend this book, just stop after the first book and do yourself a favor!
This is a very sexy sapphic vampire story with an incredible plot too. Jill is a member of a sorority that happens to feed vampires with their blood and they all live as a sort of extended family. Jill never really fit in and keeps herself occupied with an extreme excess of academic pursuits to fill the gap left by not having deep connections with her sorority sisters. Tokyo is a vampire who also doesn’t fit in very well with the group but finds herself very drawn to the seemingly aloof Jill. In addition, some dangerous entity is out there kidnapping feeders. The vampires need to figure out what is lurking and how to keep the sorority safe. Be prepared to not want to put this book down. It’s sooooooo good.
I liked both Tokyo and Jill and I thought their romance was very cute. I found some parts of the storyline interesting as well. However, I really disliked the ending of the book. It felt incomplete and just too convenient. There was no explanation as to how she was able to come back to life. It seemed as an easy way the author could wrap the book up without having to progress the plot. Also, Camila and Ginger felt like completely different characters in this book compared to the first. In the first book they were a lot kinder and more understanding and them being so different in this book really annoyed me because in the first book I absolutely loved them.
For a long time, I sat on the fence about whether or not I wanted to read this book. I hate when a sequel (Sequels) kills my 'OMG' factor from book one.
When I saw this on sale on Bold Strokes Book's website, I figured it was time. I was wrong.
It's not a bad story, but I struggled with more things than I care to list.
In an essence, this isn't a review, just my musings. If you, like me, are undecided, give it a shot.
Better than book 2. This because the connection/chemistry between Jill and Tokyo was there. I didn’t like them in book 2 but did in book 3. For me Ginger isn’t a bitch now, but more overprotective. There were a couple of hot scenes starting, but than cut to short which felt like a colder shower after nice hot water. So not Rebekah’s best work for me. Still love book 1. 3 stars for this one
Pretty great, just wish I had found out about Rebekah sooner because I really do like her style, a healthy mixture of comedic timing and serious drama, I'll give it a 3.5 star rating for the characters.