Yes, Absolutely Perfection is just as wild, crazy, and eccentrically beautiful as the book blurb makes it sound.

The book starts out on a dark note, with a bar interrogation scene that could be taken from any prime time drama - except for the fact that the bartender is a vampire, and his interrogator is a Hindu snake-god in human guise. The banter is very well done, and the introduction of the vampire's family provides our first glimpse of the surreal elements that drive the story along. When Taza comes barelling into the bar, fleeing a human who has mistaken the seahorse for a mermaid and deemed him lunch, the story launches into full-on camp absurdity.

What develops from there is a fairly standard romantic comedy involving unwilling partners who, despite their intentions, fall deeply, madly, and passionately in love. Of course, as much as the plot device is standard, the characters certainly are not. With Tika and Taza we have to non-humans taking on human guises that are bordering between cute twink and effeminate boy. To confuse matters further, both are capable of bearing young, and are equally certain that the other will fulfill that role in their relationship.

The book's one minor failing is that it's so frantic, and so deep with the alien biology of mythological creatures, that the reader can get lost at times. The sex scenes are particularly confusing, especially when Tika is wavering between his natural serpent self and his human guise. In the end, though, the love story is so strong and so rewarding that the reader is more than happy to take the time to go back and reread a few paragraphs.

Ultimately, this is a story unlike any other you're likely to read this year. Novelty aside, it's also wonderfull written, which characters you will almost immediately become invested in. ( )

In the chaos that was my reading list this last year, I almost forgot this book, and that would have been a big mistake. I’m an early admirer of the M/M sci-fi/fantasy novels by Stephanie Burke, and I’m still eagerly waiting for the third instalment in her Space Opera series; Stephanie Burke was among the first, and few, authors of mpreg stories I read, and the quality of her stories are always well above the average. Even if her novels are funny and light romances, you can clearly understand that there was a good research and plotting behind it, a thing that is proved in this same book, at the end you will find a good bibliography helping you understand where Stephanie Burke took inspiration for this original M/M romances.

The story is for sure out of the ordinary: in a fantasy/futuristic world, Astika, a mythological creature from India with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a snake, who can shift in a secondary fully human form, meets his mate in Baltimore (how I like the combination of an ordinary city with fantasy characters); Taza is a sea horse, who can, like Astika, shift in a fully human form, preserving some characteristic from his original form: pretty and huge eyes, long colourful mane and the ability to carry children!

Basically Astika is the unwilling savior of Taza, he was simply talking in a bar when Taza decided that Astika’s back was the right place to attach himself and hide from the man who is hunting him. When Astika, trying more to defend himself than Taza, helps the bartender kicking out the villain, Taza decides Astika is his savior: between the married and un-dead bartender and the unmarried and handsome Astika, the choice is simple and logic. No matter that Astika doesn’t want a mate, he saved Taza and now he is responsible for him. And when it comes out that Astika is as much as noble as Taza (the only heir to an undersea kingdom), the arranged marriage is sponsored also by Astika’s parents, he has no escape.

Truth be told, nor Astika or Taza are really strong and independent heroes, actually they resemble more spoiled rich brats and together they are a pair that will lead for sure to funny situations, while trying to running away from different types of pretender and at the same time spending their “honeymoon” exploring their body differences. The story was mostly light, at times arousing, and for sure original; even if you are usually not a fan of sci-fi/fantasy genre, if you like pretty twinkies, I recommend this one, even if one of the twinkies (Astika) is 7 feet tall!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BLK798/?tag=elimyrevandra-20