Review: "Gabriel's Inferno" by Sylvain Reynard

Gabriel's Inferno is not my usual read.  It's a contemporary romance... yes you read it right, I'm reading a story about humans ;)  I've read a couple of good series that have pulled me away lately... Fifty Shades of Grey (yes, I've been sucked into the hoopla) and The Crossfire series.  I still like my vamps and shifters better but these series definitely have some hot alpha guys in them too.  Just a brief review on this one...

Amazon synopsis:
Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well-respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.  When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.  An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love, and redemption, Gabriel’s Inferno is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man’s escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible—forgiveness and love.

First of all, I have to say this synopsis is very deceiving (which is why I wanted to share it instead of writing my own on this one).  It makes you believe it's a hot steamy romance, but it is certainly far from that.  It's more of a touching tale of two people trying to overcome rough pasts and learning to love again.  The first half of the book was a little slow for me.  The author did a good job of making you understand their pasts and why they act the way they do at this point in their lives, but definitely could have been done in probably the first 20% of the book just as well.  Several other reviewers have called this a dark romance, but they have obviously not been reading the same type of books that I do.  The PNR and urban fantasy novels as a rule are usually pretty dark with lots of tortured protagonists.  Compared to those this was all flowers and rainbows with the exception of a couple very short parts and even those are not bad.  I will say that by about 3/4 of the way through the book I started to get a little more invested in the characters, I think one little action/fight scene got things rolling a little.  Gabriel and Julia definitely took their time getting to know one another which was sweet.  I'm sure I'll pick up the second book in the series, Gabriel's Rapture at some point.