Review: The Faction Box Set – Addison Albright

Genre: Paranormal, Romance

LGBTQ+ Category: Gay

Reviewer: Linda, Paranormal Romance Guild

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About The Book

A dying man, a chance for life. When the faction’s new recruit takes a misstep on his first solo outing as a vampire, Albert thinks his faction has controlled the fallout. Neil, née Phillip, is thankful for his new lease on life, but will give it all up if that will prevent his ex-boyfriend from having to pay for his mistake. This box set includes both books in Addison Albright’s best-selling M/M vampire duology.

Contains the stories:

The Recruit: Albert Manlii has walked this earth for many years and leads a faction of highly organized vampires carefully guarding the secret of their existence. Potential recruits are carefully selected and presented with an offer. Phillip Brewer has weeks to live — if he lets his disease run its course. He doesn’t want to die, but will his desire to live outweigh his concerns about the vampires’ ethics?

The Choice: Now that faction-leader Albert has a blood-mate, he finds himself second-guessing his decisions. Neil would be crushed knowing the mistake he’d made as a fledgling vampire led to human deaths, but Albert shouldn’t factor that into the difficult choices he must make. Will Albert’s indecision put the entire vampire establishment in danger? Or is redemption only a flamethrower away?

The Review

The Recruit

Albert Manlii has existed for over two thousand years, I say ‘existed’ because he’s a vampire and technically is not alive. Now he is the faction leader responsible for recruiting one or two new willing converts. Despite being immortal, vampires can die, and some leave the faction in one way or another when immortality becomes more than they can bear.

Albert spots a man he believes would be perfect and a man that he is sure is his blood-mate. Of course, he would love nothing more than for this man to meet all the requirements to be recruited, but even if he is Albert’s blood-mate, he will not interfere in the procedure that has to be followed. The recruit must be of a certain age, intelligent and capable of fitting in. He must have no ties – family, spouse or close friends who would miss him or could possibly notice him, once he is pronounced dead.

Phillip Brewer is dying from a very rare form of gall-bladder cancer, so deadly that he only has a week or two to live. Albert approaches Phillip with the offer of life, and it doesn’t take Phillip long to agree to life, even if that life will be as a vampire. The change is very fast, requiring just a small exchange of blood – very different from what is usually portrayed in the movies. Then it’s done.

Like Albert, Phillip feels a connection with his new mentor, although he is unaware of the blood-mate bond. He is given a new personality, a new eye color using contacts, a new hair style, new clothes and a new name. Phillip is dead – long live Neil Franklin, from Texas. Even looking in the mirror, Neil no longer sees Phillip.

This was such a unique take on vampires – they can be in the sun, they use blood from a blood bank, they only recruit those that are dying, and they stay together as a family. Short but wonderful.

The Choice

Albert is the leader of a faction of highly organized vampires who carefully guard knowledge of their existence. Months earlier, he found his blood-mate Neil, aka Phillip. Phillip was dying; to save his life, Albert took his choice away and turned him. Now Neil’s ex-boyfriend, Cameron, is causing trouble and might reveal the existence of vampires. Cameron saw Neil on one of his deliveries, and Neil’s response left Cameron questioning if this man was a look-alike or if his ex was a vampire – a possibility further enforced by his new boyfriend, Dennis.

Now Dennis and Cameron will get the choice that Neil didn’t have – whether to be turned. However, in their case, not being turned would mean death. Turning them, even if they accept, is full of problems. Both men have a lot of family and friends they will be leaving behind, and their deaths must be choreographed perfectly. The biggest problem is Dennis, who Albert is not sure about. But because of his blood-mate, he is willing to overlook his possible danger to vampires worldwide.

The Recruit and the Choice can be read separately but it is nice to have them in one book.

Five stars.

The Reviewer

I am an avid reader the mother of 3 sons and grandmother to seven grandchildren. Since retiring I have been doing more reading while volunteering as a CASA worker. CASA is an organization that works with the family court system to ensure that children are in the best living situation. There are way too many children that get overlooked in the foster care system and I visit homes and make visits to the parents. I was born and raised in New York and my husband of 50 years and I live in Upstate New York.

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