Guarded by the Kraken by Cassie Alexander

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A kraken, a scientist, and a love under pressure…. 

As a kraken bodyguard, I rarely get human clients. When I do, the only way to protect them is to form a telepathic bond. I don’t like it, but after my wife’s death years ago I’ve learned to build an impenetrable shield around myself and my emotions, until I meet my newest client. She’s a scientist investigating an ancient relic on the ocean floor. The abyssal plane is no place for humans, but the job is the job, so I shut off my soul, bury my secrets, and link our minds.

The flood of her emotions takes me by surprise. I thought I would be in charge, but our bond is stripping us both bare, layer after layer, until she can see my bleeding wounds, and I can taste her unspoken desires.

We cannot be together. We can’t even touch. She breathes air, and I live at high pressure at the bottom of the ocean. Our feelings bring us nothing but torment, and I know once she’s on dry land again, I’ll have to sever our bond.

But when she’s betrayed by the people she’s working for, and her life is in danger–I will not rest until she’s safe in all of my arms.

Monster Security Agency is the most elite bodyguard service in the world. These monster bodyguards are lethal, powerful, and determined to protect their clients at all costs. They shouldn’t fall in love with their principals, but if they do? Things are bound to explode.

Guarded by the Kraken

“May the force be with you!”

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙💜❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: 🙂🥰😎😄
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The Hero: Cepharius (a.k.a. Ceph) – he is a Kraken monster, brother to the king, who works for the Monster Security Agency, as a bodyguard to supernatural beings, usually manitills who are in danger from humans. He got the job a the MSA in order to get various intelligence from the “two legged” species. He was mated in the past and lost his mate Kaoni in an undersea tsunami when she wouldn’t abandon her egg, and the brick walls of their home caved in on her their child. Another reason he left his home to guard the manitills for three years is because the Kraken can hear each others’ thoughts through the quah (telepathic link), and he couldn’t take their pity.

The heroine: Elle – she is a historian and linguist for ancient monster civilizations, and she just got a job working on a project in the Calish trench, deep in the ocean. She is at a dangerously deep and mysterious ocean institute funded by a billionaire named Mr. Marlow. She is researching something that could lead to a huge scientific discovery, perhaps of a new language from an ancient civilization. Elle recently had a double mastectomy because she was predisposed to breast cancer. She found out when sister suddenly died of it. Since she no longer wants to have kids for fear of giving them the BRCA gene, her husband left her.

The Story: Ceph almost never guarded humans as a part of his job, but Elle needed undersea security due to the nature of the discovery. The only way to guard her is to create a telepathic bond between them by touching her. He had avoided touching any sentient beings for years, and now that he was back home, the king asked him to do this for them. He agreed on the promise of the King that when the job was over, he would be allowed to go away alone forever.

The world building was terrific. It was never so known how dangerous it was for Elle to be down in the undersea installation as since the implosion of the Titan submersible down near the wreck of the Titanic in 2023. The pressure that deep has a lot of issues and the book even described the fact that she had to breathe helium because of the pressure and that made her voice really high.

I liked the telepathic bond between the two main characters. Elle didn’t like the fact that Ceph could read her mind at the start, so she kept trying to think of innocuous things like small white dogs and english tea sets. With regards to the world building, you could tell the author did her research into linguistics as well, the research Elle was doing was very detailed.

I have to admit, that I probably wouldn’t have tried this book if I hadn’t already read and loved a few other books in this series by Cassie Alexander. I am not into creatures that look more animal than human, and I don’t like the whole sea creature, tentacle thing that some people seem to like. Though I do love monster romance and since this was the only other book in this series on audiobook, aside from Guarded by the Spider, which I also didn’t expect to enjoy, but ended up liking, so I grabbed it. Anyway, I picture the monster as more of an aquaman looking guy. Even so, I was surprised at how quickly I got interested in the story, and from then on, I wanted them to have a romantic relationship.

This audiobook was done in dual points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Jonathon Lake and Avery Caris. They did a terrific job. Jonathon Lake has a deep voice that works very well for a monster romance. Avery Caris has a soft, feminine sounding voice that is perfect for a romance heroine. She is very expressive, and I really enjoyed the narration.

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