Deep Deception by Z.A. Maxfield

Narrated by Caleb Dickinson

There are spoilers for the first book in the Deep series, Deep Desire, in this review.

When five-hundred-year-old vampire Donte Fedeltà and his human lover Adin Tredeger embarked upon a relationship at the end of Deep Desire, it was clear that the road to Happily Ever After wasn’t going to be an easy one, not least because of Adin’s emphatic refusal to allow Donte to turn him (into a vampire) so that they can be together for all time. For Adin,

“It’s [life is] my journey. And without its beginning, its middle and its end, I’m not ever going to be the man I was born to be.”

– and he is content to be with Donte for the time allotted to him. However, this isn’t the only issue causing friction between them in Deep Deception. Adin is fed up with Donte continually treating him as though he needs constant supervision. He accepts that the supernatural world he is discovering contains previously un-thought-of dangers, and he’d hoped, after months of self-defence classes and constant lecturing, that Donte would realise he doesn’t need to be so protective… but after yet another spat, Adin decides he needs some breathing space, and slips away to Paris to attend an auction, leaving his lover a note –

“I’ll be back but you’re going to have to get used to letting me come and go.”

In Paris, Adin receives a message from his professional rival, Ned Harwiche, who asks Adin to meet him in order to discuss a business proposition. Adin has no idea what Harwiche could want, and is getting impatient for his arrival at the appointed time and place when he’s accosted by two besuited heavies who have clearly mistaken him for Harwiche, and hauled off into a waiting car. After a short drive, Adin is marched into what looks like an old curio shop and hustled down to the basement where, he’s told, he’ll find the merchandise he’s come to purchase – and is horrified to be brought to stand before a teenaged boy shackled to the wall, his wrists, ankles and neck encircled by iron restraints.

Adin doesn’t know or care why his captors have mistaken him for Harwiche, and he doesn’t know or care why the boy – whose name is Bran – has been so cruelly treated; he just wants to get him out of there, so he pays the hefty price asked and takes Bran to a hotel to work out what to do next. He decides to call his friend Edward, whose partner, Tuan, is some sort of paranormal cop and seek their advice, but before he can speak to either of them, Boaz – Donte’s general factotum – and Cristobel Santos (Donte’s enemy, the son of his long-dead lover Auselmo) turn up at the hotel room. Adin has already figured out that Bran is no ordinary teen – he’s able to get inside Adin’s head and see his thoughts and memories – but even Bran doesn’t know who or what he is; he has no memories and no sense of anything about himself other than his name. Adin doesn’t know what his captors could have wanted with him – but Santos does. Apparently Harwiche has somehow got hold of Auselmo’s letters to Donte, letters which Santos maliciously told Donte he’d burned long ago; and Harwiche was planning to exchange the letters for Bran. Adin is appalled while Santos – being Santos – enjoys his discomfort. Donte would do anything to get those letters, and once he knows where Bran is, he’ll most likely try to force Adin to hand Bran over, but Adin promised to protect Bran… he just hadn’t expected to have to protect him from the man he loves.

It’s a good set-up, and I was looking forward to finding out more about Bran and his abilities and to learn how Adin and Donte were going to deal with being on ‘opposite sides’, so to speak, with Adin wanting to protect Bran and Donte wanting to exchange him for the letters. But neither of those things really happens; Bran’s origins aren’t explored and most of the story consists of Adin taking him from place to place in order to hide him or keep him safe. They move from city to city, country to country, continent to continent, although a lot of the time, I couldn’t figure out who – if anyone – was chasing them. And Donte is pretty much incidental for most of the book; he shows up occasionally to act fondly exasperated with Adin and have sex with him, but there’s no sense of their relationship developing until quite late in the book, when a tragic and unexpected event leaves listeners wondering how they can resolve things between them in book three, Deep Deliverance.

Adin continues to be irritating at times, but there’s also no doubt that he truly cares for Donte, and I liked the odd friendship that’s developing between him and Santos, and the relationship the author builds between him and Bram. But on the other hand, he fails to fully appreciate just how important he is to Donte, and I have to say that I felt like applauding when Boaz finally tore into him and made him really think about how his stubborn behaviour in refusing to learn about the paranormal world of which he is now a part and his disregard for anything but his own personal wants could be hurting Donte. That said, though, I still enjoyed Adin’s affectionate mocking and the way that Donte has started to unbend a little – when they’re together, they’re compelling, but they spend a lot of time apart in this story, which also probably contributed to my overall disappointment.

Having really enjoyed Caleb Dickinson’s narration in Deep Desire, I was confident going into Deep Deception that was in for more of the same, and for the most part that was true. His characterisations of the main characters are consistent with the previous book, his pacing and differentiation are excellent, and he does a great job in conveying the emotional truth of each scene, whether it’s the love scenes, moments of heightened tension or of introspection. BUT – the addition of Bran to the cast proved problematic for Mr. Dickinson, because the accent he uses for him is… well I can’t even describe it, because it’s like no accent I’ve ever heard. Bran is supposed to sound as though he comes from the north of England, but while the narrator is able to sustain what sounds almost like an RP (received pronunciation) accent to portray Santos, he is unable to perform a northern accent, and instead comes up with a weird mish-mash of I-don’t-know-what that was truly excruciating to listen to. Because Bran is a big part of the story, he’s ‘on stage’ quite a lot and has a fair bit of dialogue, so this really did impact on my overall enjoyment of the audiobook.

All in all, Deep Deception wasn’t as big a hit with me as Deep Desire, but I’m still glad I listened to it, as some of its events relate directly to those to come in Deep Deliverance, and for all the problems with his characterisation of Bran, Mr. Dickinson’s portrayal of the principals continues to be very strong and Donte’s accent is knee-melting. All three books are available as part of the Audible Romance Package (at time of writing) though, and if you have that, then it’s worth a listen.

Caz