Suppressing the horrible memories of her near death experience in Scotland at the hands of vampires and the living dead, the heroine is sure all that is behind her. That is until similar ritualistic murders start happening in New York, then North Carolina.. moving closer and closer to New Orleans. Scared, she turns to her boyfriend cop and his connections in homicide to try to find answers to why this is happening and if-as she fears- has something to do in connection to her. But the police can't help her when she begins being lured out of her house at night by strange voices hidden behind the mask of friendliness. No, the only one that can save her from an ancient and bitter enemy if the king of all vampires. The hero has felt compelled to be close to the heroine since the first second he laid eyes on her. She reminds him so much of his beloved and long deceased wife and he needs desperately to protect her from the vampiress who seeks to torture him by using the heroine in her sick and twisted game. The heroine in turn finds it hard to trust the secretive and obviously not no heroic man who haunts her dreams and compels her to love him regardless of what her head tells her. But soon it becomes apparent at this vampire may her only chance at survival and her only chance at a lasting and true love. I'll start off by saying that I strongly disliked this books for many many reasons. Could it be the lazy writing style or the imaginative storyline or character development? Could it be the fact that the heroine was a complete idiot and a cheater and totally deserving of being killed by an evil vampire. Or maybe it's the fact that this supposedly suspenseful and haunting story of vampires and eternal love came across as a C rated movie with a low budget. Not low budget like The Blair Witch Project, but instead we're talkin Troll 2. Just bad. I can't barely finish and when I did I wanted my time back. I think the thing that irked me most of all was the fact that the heroine is in a committed relationship with a good man and a very sexy man yet she sleeps the with the heroine just 1 day of meeting him-not knowing who he is or if he is a good guy or the enemy. I think this was the first instance when I actually would have liked the heroine to end up with the boyfriend rather than the immortal lover. ( )

This second book in Shannon Drake’s vampire series was really quite disappointing. In addition to the myriad spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes, the plot and characters were very lacking. My copy is not even an ARC, so I was completely mystified as to why the publishing company would allow this manuscript to be sold in this condition.
Lucian, self-proclaimed “king of the vampires” is the hero of this tale, doing battle against an ancient foe that seems too powerful to defeat. Fortunately Drake has changed her vampire rules a little from the first book in order to make this villain vanquishable, otherwise this might not have turned out so well. As before random characters are convieniently the reincarnations of past friends, so much so that when someone says, “I feel like I’ve met you before” the reader starts trying to think of who they must have once been.
The narrative is slow-going with several little subplots that seem like excuses to showcase vampire cruelty to sub-characters without putting main characters in any danger. Then, despite that, main characters actually do find themselves in peril, except that the rules have changed, so they can recover. Whatever.
The book comes to its climax, a big show-down in a grave yard, but is over almost before it begins. Yay, the good guys win, the end. The reader is left going, “what just happened?” and wondering if it’s even really over. Drake might want to leave some ambiguity, intending to resurrect this villain, which she might actually need to do because I know this series continues and Sophia seems like a hard one to top. However, it’s just really poorly done and doesn’t feel like a payoff at all for slogging through this lame book.
I really wanted to like this book. I tried so hard. Honestly, though, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I do have to give it points for referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer overtly, but I feel dirty about it because quite frankly a lot of the story feels like it was cribbed from episodes of Buffy. Specifically, her war with Spike and Drusilla. ( )

The 2nd in a series of romantic vampire books. As great as the first. Will make you affraid to ever be in a cemetery at midnight. Wonderfully chilling. ( )