Sherrilyn Kenyon
Contemporary/Paranormal
New Orleans. The Big Easy.
Fat Tuesday in the French Quarter and a stroll down Bourbon Street.
And any romance lover worth her beignets knows the nights in N'awlins are haunted by strains of cool jazz and cooler --
Vampires.
What? You ain't hip to the drop-dead Undead that populate some of today's most successful contemporary romance novels?
Well then, chere, y'all got to get you some Dark Hunter.
Start with "Seize the Night" one of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series of singularly clever novels.
Upon death, heroes and heroines of the series became Dark Hunters, immortals sworn to protect humanity from a race of blood-and-soul-stealing vampires called Daimons.
Outrageously attractive in human-like bodies, Dark Hunters wear cool clothes and use slick moves and weaponry to poof the Daimons to dust before those bad guys can suck the human race dry.
Our man Valerius Magnus has been a Dark Hunter for 2,000 years.
Superior, condescending and exacting, the former Roman general prefers Versace ensembles, refuses plastic cutlery and would not be caught undead eating pizza.
He doesn't laugh. He slays alone. He's
not a popular guy.
Valerius meets his match and polar opposite when Tabitha Devereaux -- adult store owner, ancient civilizations expert and Daimon-wasting human -- barrels into his quasi-life. Valerius' world is rocked off axis and the sniping begins.
Strong, competent, and cheeky, Tabitha gives Valerius as good as she gets, parrying his uptight biases and presumptive commands with snarky set-downs in flawless Latin.
Alas, there are two
little teeny problems in Taming of the Shrew Land: First, Tabitha is the sister-in-law of Valerius's mortal enemy and second, there are bad guys out to kill Tabitha and everyone she holds dear.
I'll share with you that I haven't read a ton of vampire paranormal, but this kind of plot suspense and quirky romantic pairing hooks me in any kind of novel.
It's a fun story and Kenyon weaves it nicely. Just when you think she's going to wrap up a thread of the plot, she tugs the conclusion just out of reach, often adding to it another layer of interest.
Kenyon's also writes realistic dialogue that entices us to read on. The characters, even secondary, are appealing and say hip, funny things relevant to our lives as well as theirs. It just makes you like 'em and want Kenyon to tell you their stories, too.
Now, some vampire romances differ from "Seize the Night" in that their vampire heroes are more Stokeresque.
I don't know. Something about a guy who sleeps in dirt and drinks blood ... doesn't seem sanitary let alone arousing.
But I'd love to be convinced otherwise.
While I'm waiting on your e-mails, I'm gonna get me some more Dark Hunter.
As for "Seize the Night“?
Go buy the book.
Next Week's review and AuthorView interview: "It's in His Kiss,"by Julia Quinn. Distributed by Internet Broadcasting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
