Paula Chaffee Scardamalia’s The Tempting Voice is a romance about a hidden Greek mythological world that co-exists with ours. The novel explores the tropes of forbidden love, personal achievement, the positive and negative of family, and monstrous enemies.
The novel alternates point-of-view between two main characters – Nik and Marie Juliette (MJ). Nik is a financial planner/agent who assisted MJ’s grandmother’s career as a novelist, or so he says. He is actually a Greek immortal Voice, son of a Muse, who encourages humans to tap into their creative side. The humans who are successful buoy the Muses, keeping them healthy and young. MJ is a twenty-five-year-old woman who is writing her dissertation so that she can teach Women’s Literature in the university where her mother holds a post. MJ’s grandmother asks Nik to help MJ unleash her creative side when she dies. Nik agrees to take on the assignment and tells MJ that she must inhabit her grandmother’s seaside, expansive cottage for a summer to inherit it. MJ’s grandmother treated Nik like family, so he has a room there.
This scenario sets up a fascinating narrative of Nik attempting to sway MJ to pause her dissertation work and finish her grandmother’s romantic novel. MJ is resistant to Nik’s advice, if not his charms, and alternates between being in his arms and arguing with him. The first time she’s in his arms he has saved her life, but soon the two find themselves falling for each other. Naturally, a rule in the immortal realm is an immortal cannot fall in love with a mortal.
After the two acknowledge their affection for each other, the supernatural world starts intersecting with MJ’s normal world. The scenes with other mythological creatures and the ramifications of falling in love separate our two main characters. The questions of whether MJ will pursue a more creative path or Nik will accept the consequences of being with MJ make up the latter half of the book.
While MJ or Nik are never enemies, their adverse wills put them in conflict for much of the story. Their dynamic personalities and lively exchanges are some of the best scenes in the book. Though an immortal, Nik’s ability to influence MJ is stymied time and again. For her part, MJ reconnects and disconnects with her inner creative spirit through her grandmother’s legacy. The supernatural intersecting with our world, and watching people marvel at it, is always entertaining.
The Tempting Voice, a novel about unleashing your creative side, uses its own imagination to tell a delightful tale of two people looking for more out of life. At times exciting and swoon worthy, the novel sizzles with romantic drama.