Creatus (The Creatus Series Book 1)

I'll tell you straight up that paranormal romance is NOT my genre, but this book was good. Perhaps because it didn't fall into all the cliched traps of vampire love stories. That made it much more compelling to me, and I stayed up late at night (and kept sneaking reads during kids' soccer games) to finish it as quickly as I could.

Kristina's life has been filled with tragedies--in particular, violent attacks by muggers and date raping college boys. This has left her jaded and abusing substances to try to escape the pain. Through it all, though, she clings to the belief that she has a Guardian "Dark Angel" of sorts. When she realizes that she needs him in her life more presently, she does something desperate--and it works.

She is thrown int the world of the Creatus, and into a strange romance with Derrick, the "Dark Angel" of her dreams. I do wish I understood what it was about Kristina that made him love her so much, and maybe book 2 will develop their relationship a bit further from the Superman/Lois Lane rescue mode. That said, the world-building (even as it overlapped with our own) was cool, and I appreciated that while there was a lot of kissing, there wasn't anything that made me blush.

I did figure out the mystery aspect of the story about 75% through, though second-guessed myself once or twice before the end. And the ending definitely makes you want to go on to the next book. It's a quick and easy read, and it fires the imagination. I think tweens on up would enjoy this for a sweet romance with a lot of suspense and action thrown in.

When I found out Carmen DeSousa was taking her writing into a different genre, I was somewhat skeptical. As I normally do not read paranormal, vampires, werewolves, witches...not into that, nope not me. But CREATUS is just not that, however it is paranormal. Very hard to describe without giving anything away, but if you believe in fairy tales and monsters, then this may be WHY you believe in them (at least the tag line on the front of book suggests this).

I was one of the lucky ones to read this book before it was actually sent out to the public, and I fell in love with Kris and Derrick.

Derrick's love for Kris is true and unwavering (something we all yearn for in our own lives). He has followed her throughout her life, keeping her safe, and watching over her, saving her for the "right" moment. Even though he felt the right moment should be much later, Kris made sure the moment came much sooner!

Others were not as happy of their love and when Derrick's family and friends find out he has "fallen" for Kris, he has to listen to them try to talk him out of it.

You have to pick this one up and find out if Derrick actually listens to his family and friends, or does he listen to his heart!!!

LOVE THIS BOOK and I highly recommend it!

This is a wonderful light fantasy that I enjoyed immensely. The characters were well developed and the plot moved along at a good clip. It's not the type novel I usually read, but it was a great change of pace. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Really loves his book and the the characters! The love story between Kris and Derrick was amazing. I was really disappointed when I saw the rest of the series did not really follow Kris and Derrick, it switches to other members of Derrick's family.

I thought this was an Adult, Supernatural Story and as I got part way into it, I realized it was more for the 15 to 19 year old set. Or the older women who have Twilight tattoos on their rear end readers. The story is an interesting premise but instead of giving us any real clue as to what these beings actually are (Vampire like beings?), we are taken on a long, long, long and winding word road of maybe, kind of , sort of, something.

The author references their eating habits...often. Except that by the end of book one, all we know is that they eat a raw food diet. Right. So do most of the people in the veg/hippie/yoga communities across the country. So why is it written as if witnessing their "eating" is going to make a human shriek in fear? BROCOLLI! Nooooooooooooo! And if it's raw meat they are eating, it would have been more interesting if at least one character was seen having a meal instead of holding on to that detail for book two like that was going to be the most important thing we learn about these...whatever they are.

I'd like to know, after buying and reading an entire story, exactly who it is I'm reading about.

I wish I could say the story was so engaging that I am eager to get to the next book in the series but, like just OK TV shows that appear and are cancelled after three episodes with barely a notice, I will probably forget to look for it because I have already forgotten most of this story and I just finished reading it last night.

If you haven't read it yet, here's the story: Young woman, rough childhood, dead mom, mysterious rescuer, instant love and marriage in 24 hours (SOOOO tired of this as story line because super young readers romanticize idiotic boys and give it all away to them to be like the story book girl who married to soon), kidnapping, rescue, bad guy.

There is some good stuff in here. I just wish all the things in between the good stuff had been written in a more interesting fashion. Sorry.

Well written, thorough plot. Not predictable like some paranormal romance is. I like the twist to the popular legend without it being twilight-stupid.
My biggest downer? I like smut scenes, and she passed over the sex completely.

Personally, I would not be sure exactly how I would react if I found out that I was being “watched for my own safety” for the majority of my life.
n this story, you have a young woman, Kris, who was saved by her “dark angel” but her mother (or the only mother she knew) was violent murdered. This young child refuses to believe that she made up the man who saved her, and she holds on to that for years. Being rescued by him more than she actually knows, but only remember a few times.
Letting the harshness of her life pile down on her, Kris becomes an alcoholic. Using it as an escape from her life … pretty much every single night.
On the anniversary of her mother’s death, Kris wakes to find herself in an apartment with some man she decided to smoke pot with. Even though the 1st time she did, she had a horrid reaction … guess alcohol can cause your brain to shut down. When she stumbles into the alley, the same one her mother died in, Kris completely looses it. She wants to know why she was saved … because from her view point, there was not reason. During this ranting and raving, Kris decides to prove to herself once & for all that her “dark angel” is not something she made up.
Derrick is the “dark angel.” But he has to abide by the laws of his kind. They are to stay invisible to the world. Not be the heroes they once where because now with the technology mankind has, it would be far to easy for the government to locate them & well, who really knows from there.

There is a lot of cleaning up & fixing each other in this tale. Ridding Kris of the need for alcohol. Having her accepted into the family. Hunting down the rogue Creatus, who savagely kills humans to prove they are beneath Creatus.

Yes, the characters could have used some extra building. But they were not that bad. You are mainly following Derrick and his path to become the individual he needs to be to save his family from the destruction of the Rogue Creatus. But you cannot have a hero without a damsel in distress … this tale would have fallen flat on it’s face otherwise.
Ms. DeSousa creates a unique world where the heroes of the past are still with us. She gives you a young Creatus who must decide for himself what is important and what is not, plus how much he will risk for it. She provides humans to spice up the story, even if we do not agree with how they were in the beginning … we watch as they learn to change as well.

[...]

I loved the author's fresh perspective on super heroes and villains and I was excited to see where it would go...It failed to deliver due to lack of character development. The main characters are instantly in love making it difficult to believe their connection. It is hard to buy into the motivations of some of the characters, keep them straight or quite frankly care...if a person drinks everyday for 6 years so much so that their body goes into withdrawal (DTs), it is hard to believe that person is not an alcoholic...

This story is different from a typical love or romance. It jumps characters and feelings and times. It is a little hard to follow. I like supernatural books, However I also like the situations to be believeable or understandable and maybe relate in some way.
I don't feel like there is character or relationship development. If there were I think I could have related more to this story.
I feel like this was almost depressing instead of the stories that go through ups and downs, heartache and love and character building. I feel like this was stuck in one feeling the whole book.

I have been having trouble getting into liking a book since Twilight. Every other book as not held my interest. I could not put this book down. It was very good and I ever bought the other two to go along with it and I cannot wait for the other in the series to come out as well.

Disclaimer: I read this book as part of the bundle (1-5).

I know Creatus are aliens that don't age as fast as human and all, still it felt funny that an adult would protect a child and then fall in love with her. Also Kristina was a real brat. She was hard to love. It did help flesh Derrick though and made me like him for what she made him go through.

The back story continues. We learn a bit more about the rogue(s) who wants to shine the light on the Creatus, which made me curious to go on with book 3.

While I adored Derrick I didn't like Kristina as much until maybe toward the end of the book when I made peace with her. At least she grew as a character.

I'd say this book is the one I liked the least in the series, but still I liked it enough to go on.

It became evident very quickly that this was a PG rated book. I would put this in the category of more for teenagers.
I am an adult. I would have preferred more adult scenes. I don't even just mean sex, though at least that would have been something, but this was just kinda boring all around.
The plot was fairly predictable from the first. Nonhuman Good guys, Nonhuman Bad guys, Human girl love interest. Nonhuman Jealous girl. Understanding family, kinda. Anyway, it was all stuff we have seen before, watched on tv and movies before. There is nothing that even made me want to continue with the series.
Sorry, but i wouldn't even recommend this book to my teenage niece.