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Review: Inspire (#1, Muse) by Cora Carmack

My Thoughts

A stirring romance with a supernatural twist
that is deliciously sexy and entirely addictive.

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Inspire: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

Synopsis

Dec-15

Kalliope lives with one purpose.

To inspire.

As an immortal muse, she doesn’t have any other choice. It’s part of how she was made. Musicians, artists, actors—they use her to advance their art, and she uses them to survive. She moves from one artist to the next, never staying long enough to get attached. But all she wants is a different life— a normal one. She’s spent thousands of years living lie after lie, and now she’s ready for something real.

Sweet, sexy, and steady, Wilder Bell feels more real than anything else in her long existence. And most importantly… he’s not an artist. He doesn’t want her for her ability. But she can’t turn off the way she influences people, not even to save a man she might love. Because in small doses, she can help make something beautiful, but her ability has just as much capacity to destroy as it does to create. The longer she stays, the more obsessed Wilder will become. It’s happened before, and it never turns out well for the mortal.

Her presence may inspire genius.

But it breeds madness, too.

My Review

Cora Carmack delivers a tantalizing forbidden love story with Inspire. It’s edgy, witty, sexy and mysterious with a unique supernatural twist that keeps us utterly addicted. It’s a perfect transitional book for contemporary readers, striking a lovely balance between traditional romance and paranormal. I loved the chemistry between our two protagonists, as their love story took shape… a relentless push and pull driven by emotion and anchored by a deadly truth.

“Creation and Destruction. These are the things I inspire.”

As a muse, Kalli knew temporary. She knew breakups. She knew the high of a quick inspirational fix and low of unending loneliness. Her power was both beauty and destruction, but lately it had felt like a curse—one that bridled her hopes of finding something real. Someone to love her for who she is, not what she inspired. Because although Kalli sparked greatness in musicians, designers and artists of all kinds, the high of inspiration was hollow and transient. She could never stay, never find love, never tempt those around her too much. Because the line between inspiration and madness was a fine one… a sharp, precarious edge she mustn’t cross.

“This is what it is to be a muse. I walk the line between want and need, between power and submission.”

As she danced from one relationship to the next, the burden of immortality weighed heavily upon her as the need for something more intensified. Despite her good intentions and her unique ability to create beauty, being around her was dangerous… a fact she recently experienced first hand. But the moment she met Wilder Bell, she felt something different. An undeniable attraction that made her usual control quiver. He’s everything she’s been looking for and everything she needs to stay away from.

“I’ve never known what it’s like to love someone, to build a life, to grow older… because loving me is dangerous. I’m the drug.”

Wilder is the perfect combination of sexy and sweet, passionate and steady. He seems all put together on the outside, but is also this disheveled, tatted up, rough-around-the-edges guy who is a bit of an enigma himself. He shoulders responsibility for a family that’s been torn apart, forsaken his own dreams to do the right thing. And just as Kalli is instantly drawn by Wilder, Wilder is intensely drawn to Kalli.

“I feel as if there’s a cord between us, and no matter where I go or what I think, I can still feel its weight, the reminding pressure that he’s there, that he’s not going away.”

Problem is Kalli is always running. Always warring with herself. Struggling between the pull of her heart’s desire and the push of her precarious reality. And yet, in the face of a storm of secrets, they fall hopelessly for each other, finding something real and beautiful and entirely dangerous. Something Kalli can’t seem to walk away from despite the many, many reasons she should. Wilder can’t make sense of Kalli’s vacillating ways, but he knows he can’t be without her.

“I don’t give a fuck about genius. But I’ll take madness if it gives me you first.”

We’ll see some unexpected twists before the oh-my-good-god end, which left me more than shocked and desperate to see what happens next. I loved that humor was threaded throughout, helping to give the story a relatedness amidst its mythological roots. As I mentioned above, there is a lot of romance, particularly midway through, as we see these two people fall deeply for each other, feeling that pulsating connection that wouldn’t sever despite Kalli’s best efforts. Through these moments, I tried to understand Kalli’s power, how it affected others and herself, and it all better clicked during the story’s climatic end. There’s so much to explore still, both emotionally and supernaturally, and I anxiously await how Cora Carmack will twist and tangle the story for us. As a lover of paranormal stories, I hope she takes us deeper into Kalli’s world to see how the decisions Kalli and Wilder made affect their future.