Archive for vampire romance
Luscious Vampire Romance Revealed in Blood Vine
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With a setting in a Northern California winery and a vampire versus hunter setup, what else could you call it but a luscious vampire romance worth every tasty sip? Perhaps the tasty treat is not apparent from the start but it definitely builds to something to appeal to a discerning palate very quickly.
I will admit that the sensual nature of the story is fairly dripping from the start, but it is the characters of Andre and Kos, the two Croatian vampires that are the center of this tale that captivates. The lovely Zoey becomes the crux that builds the story.
A Race in Peril
Refugees from the land that has long supported their survival, the vampire race have become few and feeble. They are a victim of the eradication of their kind by the Hunters in Croatia, and the disease that enfeebles them the longer they are estranged from their home. Most of their fellow vampires have scattered across the world, gone into hiding. Those few that are left are slowly aging and dying.
But Andre and Kos may have found an answer in what they have created by grafting vines from their homeland and developing a wine that somehow recreates the curing properties of their native soil. After twenty years of work, they have found the cure. But now how can they find their hidden brethren and let them know?
Hidden Agendas
This is where Zoey comes in. She is a hard-nosed practical PR specialist, and her boss Ethan has asked her to take on the new winery client. He tells them that the winery needs a branding specialist like her. What her boss, that she has been having a casual affair with for the last year, has not told her is that he is a Hunter, and knows the vineyard owners are his prey.
Love Walks In
But as soon as Zoey arrives she is shocked to realise that the new client Andre is someone she has met before. A year ago she had walked into a San Francisco bar and met him, almost went home with him. But something sad and very familiar in him stopped her. However, it didn’t stop her from dreaming about him almost every night since. What she doesn’t know is that Andre has never forgotten her or that almost connection they had. It has haunted him, and then she walks into his winery.
It is a formula bound to bring complications to an already complicated situation. For they can smell the Hunter on her, know that in some way she is bound to him. Their lives are in danger, she is somehow connected but they have to take the risk. They need her expertise to somehow reach out to the other vamps and tell them a cure has been found. A wine can be marketed to reach them and cure, if they can only find a way to tell those in hiding that it is here.
Danger Lurks
The blood races, the longing grows and the danger circles ever closer. Can Andre and Zoey trust this feeling, when both have been damaged by love before? Can they together find a way to save his people? And if they do, will it be enough to help them survive the Hunters plans?
Vampire Romance
This is a driven vampire romance that has all the luscious overtones and ripe body of a fine wine. The setting in a modern Northern California winery combined with the old world charm of the vampire’s native Croatia are a perfect complement to each other. Zoey’s need to stay above the call of her own needs and Andres sad loneliness beneath the charming exterior make you root for their love to take hold and grow. I hear they may be more, a series even perhaps. I sure hope so, because there are so many places this story go grow. You can get your own copy of this luscious and poetic vampire romance tale in either Kindle or paperback format.
Vampire Romance Among Friends
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Plain Fear: Forbidden by Leanna Ellis
I never thought I would be checking out a vampire romance novel that takes place amongst the Amish, but that is exactly what Plain Fear: Forbidden is. Even more surprising is that it works both as a story that involves a vampire that has all the classic elements of danger and attraction, and as a story that is true to the beliefs of the Amish. It is truly more of a “What if” story and yet is quite delightful and has lots of edge of the seat danger to keep you turning those pages (or hitting that button if you use a Kindle like me)
In this vampire romance, Rachel is a young Amish widow, still grieving the loss of her beloved Josef who did in mysterious circumstances. In addition, she is pregnant. When an old friend comes by, one that she had thought dead, she at first finds his arrival suspicious. Akiva though convinces her that not only is he alive, but that he needs her to save him, and only she can do it.
Of course, Akiva is a vampire and his true interest is in Rachel’s unborn child. She doesn’t tell her sister Hannah nor Hannah’s husband Levi, who is Josef’s brother that she has seen Akiva and instead takes off with him on a journey that he tells her will end with her being reunited with her husband. Akiva is truly dangerous, but in the course of the story we do see a sympathetic side to him. But this is no vampire like we see in modern movies despite this being a vampire romance, he is the evil one and she begins to sense that something is very wrong with what she thought was her old friend from childhood.
The hero of the vampire romance is Roc, a former cop who has come to embrace the world of the Amish, though he is not always as thoroughly comfortable with it as he would like to be. He is now a vampire hunter and as he pursues Akiva and reaches out to Rachel the twin themes throughout the book of what salvation and damnation truly are and how we individually strive for them are brought to a head.
I really liked that there is an underlying concept in this vampire romance and yet the author does not slam you over the head with it. The characters carry the story, and the outcome may be predictable but is still really satisfying. Plain Fear: Forbidden is the second book, a continuation of Plain Fear: Forsaken but you can easily read and enjoy it without having read the first. But if you enjoy this one, you may want to grab the first as well. This is a vampire romance where for once the vampire doesn’t get the girl, but a romance and a well-written one at that none the less.
Teen Vampire Romance in Resurrected by Morgan Rice
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This is a vampire romance for the young and young at heart. It is Scarlett’s 16th birthday and her family is looking forward to the surprise birthday party they are planning for her. At the end of the day, Scarlett’s mother Caitlin gives Scarlett a necklace. She received it from her grandmother, who received it from her grandmother.
The silver cross has a mystical quality to it that neither can ignore. When Caitlin restless from a dream, goes up to the attic that night to pull out some antique books her grandmother gave her, she finds a diary. All her life she has wondered why she cannot remember much of her early childhood. Here she has the answers, in a diary of her childhood as a vampire.
A Journal of Hidden Memories
But is it a story written as a child or is it real? Are vampires real? Caitlin is shook to the core and seeks out an old professor to talk to about it. It is while she is gone that her beloved daughter Scarlett becomes ill, and Caitlin rushes home in time to see Scarlett toss her father across the room like he was a stuffed toy. And then Scarlett disappears, returning the next morning lost and disoriented. Caitlin doesn’t want to believe what she has read, but she recognizes the symptoms from her diary. Scarlett is changing into a vampire.
If you read author Morgan Rice’s earlier vampire romance series The Vampire Journals you will be familiar with many of the characters in this book that begins a new series for her. That said – you don’t have to have read it to get into the characters and the great YA vampire romance storytelling here. Rice is a master at this genre and it shows in the way she brings you into the dynamics of the character relationships right off the bat.
A Vampire Romance with Mystery
The mystery of Caitlin’s memory and the way the journal takes us into the back story of why there are no vampires now is really well handled. As we accompany Caitlin and Scarlett on their journey of discovery we get to see all the angst of any teenage girl’s life.
There are boy problems and of course the new boy in town (such a staple of these kinds of stories) and a great supporting cast of girlfriends to give us all some insight into Scarlett. There is of course a type of vampire romance threading through the book, but it is of the subtle variety.
But Caitlin cannot rest because when she went to New York to find an answer to whether the journal was real she was told not only was it real but that Scarlett is the last vampire left, and she must find a cure before she infects others. Scarlett has begun to feel the strange powers that overcome her at times, her sensitivity to light and most of all her strange connection to the new boy in school, Sage.
Just what or who he is and how it connects with the changes she is going through is only part of the mystery. Caitlin must fight to find a way to stop the changes her daughter is going through or risk losing her forever. Can they find the answer?
Vampire Journal Characters Return
You will find this a great story with tons of action, lots of great characterization and just enough vampire romance in a YA format to satisfy the need for some love. For those who read and loved Rice’s vampire romance series The Vampire Journals, Caitlin and her husband Caleb will be familiar and well loved characters.
For those of us just getting to know them in this new vampire romance series, they are the perfect couple grappling with a very imperfect world. It is one that does indeed include their daughter as the last remaining vampire. The question is, what does that mean for Scarlett and the rest of the world? I will warn you, don’t start on Resurrected late at night, or you may find yourself reading until dawn.
