When Darkness Falls

Alliance Vampires #2

by Shannon Drake

WHEN DARKNESS FALLS...
In a windswept Scottish cemetery, Jade MacGregor's carefree vacation abroad is marred by a seemingly random tragedy. A year later, back home on a shadowy French Quarter street, she glimpses an oddly familiar face. Coincidence--or something far more disturbing?
AND TERROR TAKES HOLD...
Surrounded by her friends and engrossed in her work, Jade should feel secure. But somebody is dogging her every move. Somebody who knows what she saw on that long ago afternoon. Somebody who will try to rescue her from the evil that is waiting to destroy her.
INNOCENCE DIES...

Genres: Paranormal, Romance, Paranormal Romance, Vampires, Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Heather Graham Pozzessere
aka Heather Graham, Shannon Drake

Heather Graham was born on March 15, 1953 and grew up in Dade County, Florida, and attended the University of South Florida at Tampa, majoring in theater arts and touring Europe and parts of Asia and Africa as part of her studies. After college, she acted in dinner theaters, modeled, waitressed, and tended bar. She married Hershey Dennis Possezzere, and after the birth of her third child, she was determined to devote her efforts to her writing: her dream. She sold her first book in 1982.

Today, this author's success is reflected not just by reader response and the over 20 million copies of her books in print, but in many other ways. In addition to being a New York Times bestselling author, Heather has received numerous awards for her novels, including over 20 trade awards from magazines such as Romantic Times and Affaire de Coeur, bestseller awards from B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, and BookRak, and several Reviewers' Choice and People's Choice awards.

Heather has appeared on Entertainment Tonight, Romantically Speaking, a TV talk show that aired nationwide on the Romance Classics cable channel, and CBS Sunday News. She has been quoted in People and USA Today, been profiled in The Nation, and featured in Good Housekeeping. Her books have been selections for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild. She has been published across the world in more than 15 languages and has published over 70 titles, including anthologies and short stories.

Now, she had five children. Somehow, this prolific author manages to juggle it all - family, career, and marriage - while reaching a level of success to which few can aspire.

Reviews

[Sherri Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book in my TBR pile for the better part of 8 years now and was never compelled to read it. Last year, I decided I needed to be proactive in culling down my TBR pile, I found this book in one of the many nooks and crannies I have books stashed in and pulled it out deciding this is one I would read, though the desire that grips most readers to read a particular book wasn't present for me with this book. I don't know why since paranormals top the list of my favorites in genre.

WHEN DARKNESS FALLS is the second story in Shannon Drake's vampire series. Characters from the first book make an appearance in this book, but this story does stand alone. The story begins in my favorite place in the world, Scotland, where the heroine, Jade MacGregor, is on a tour of a cemetary. The tour goes horribly wrong when the group is attacked by vampires. Jade is saved by a mysterious stranger and the police have a hard time believing Jade's tale. Fast forward one year later to New Orleans and Jade finds herself being hunted by the evil that she escaped from and the mysterious stranger again makes an appearance.

I honestly could not put this book down and found myself grabbing every spare moment I had to read, even if it was only a paragraph. Drake does an excellent job of weaving the past and present together to explain the history of the evil and the role the hero, Lucian DeVeau, plays in it. I liked Jade, though there are a few of those "too stupid to live" moments where she finds herself in mortal danger as a result of poor judgment. The supporting cast of characters were fantastic as well and I hope Rick Beaudreaux gets his own story. Sophia and Darian were great villains that you will despise but will enjoy finding out what they do next.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series with high hopes that it will deliver as this one did. Scottish Vampires....what else can I ask except for more please?

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Darkness Falls, by Shannon Drake ( Heather Graham) is a vampire romance novel. Written a good five years before the Twilight books made paranormal romance hot as fire, the author sticks to the basics as we knew them at that time. Jade, an author, lives in New Orleans. She survived a mass murder in Scotland while doing research for a book. She finally starts getting her life back to normal. She has good friends and family and is dating the perfect guy. But, one by one, the survivors in Scotland are being murdered.
Lucien saved Jade in Scotland, and is back to help her now as she and her family are being sought by his oldest enemy.
Lucien is yet another tortured by his conscience vampire. He stays alive to keep peace and true evil at bay. His back story was interesting. Jade, of course, reminds him of his wife, who was murdered.
There just wasn't enough chemistry between Jade and Lucien. The book was maybe a touch too long, as it tended to drag now and then. I wish we could have had more of a solid ending for the couple. They have the HEA ending, but we aren't told which options they chose. Overall I give it a C+.

[Glamdring · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the first book in this series, the story is more centered on the suspense part than the romance. And to be honest I also found it a little too centered on the bad guys rather than on the heroes relationship development.

Because the romance part was very weak and under developed, the only reason I don't give it 2 stars is because I really liked Lucian's story.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Heather Graham book that I have read. For me it was a book that was hard to lay down once I got started (but sometimes you have to make yourself do it). Just a little about it; Jade McGregor goes to Scotland to do research on old cemeteries, joins a group of college students to tour an underground tomb. She is then caught up in a vampire attack, where some of the college students are killed, she is saved by a mysterious man, she and a few students survive. Is this all over for Jade, or does things start happening that brings her back in to the clutches of death again. Find out about Jade's life, family, the mysterious man, the survivors and her fate.

*poor editing, but didn't hurt the book.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

All through this book I kept trying to remind myself that it was written way back in the year 2000 and therefore predated all the current vampires-as-sexy-romantic-interests mania. And that's pretty much the only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because I really didn't like one thing about the story.

First, the book moves at a SNAIL'S pace and is incredibly long and boring while it's crawling along. It takes ages and aaaaaages for the main female character to clue in to the fact that she's dealing with vampires and that's just boring and frustrating for the reader. Yes, if we were talking about reality, a person in Jade's situation would probably spend lots of time denying that vampires exist and would instead search for more mundane explanations. But this isn't reality it's a book, and the main purpose of a book is to keep the readers entertained so that they keep turning the pages. THE FRONT COVER ALREADY TOLD US THIS WAS A VAMPIRE STORY, IT'S NOT A MYSTERY TO US. So having to follow our clueless heroine around for 3/4 of the book while she looks at all these fantastical things happening and obliviously carries on is just irritating.

Again, maybe this is excusable by the book's age and way back in the old Y2k the fact that the hero was a vampire was some huge reveal that you could spend a whole book leading up to, but here in 2016 it makes for a total snoozefest. It's no longer enough just to HAVE a vampire in your book, they have to actually DO stuff too.


Okay so the story starts with Jade in Scotland on a nighttime tour of some graveyards. The tour guide is over-acting his delivery and the rest of the tour is made up of the worst, most stereotypical @sshole jock american tourists you can imagine. The guys are all openly dissing the tour guide while the girls are all scantily clad bimbos...all except for our drop-dead gorgeous turquoise-eyed heroine, of course. Also on this tour is Lucian, a tall, dark and mysterious man of few words who keeps close to Jade. As the midnight hour approaches the much-harassed tour guide tells the jerk Americans that he's got an extra-special place to show them that is sure to put the chill down their spines. Lucian takes the opportunity to use his magic vampire gaze to convince the couple with young children and the old folks to leave the tour rather than go to the special place.

Okay, couple things here. The reason Lucian tells the old and young to leave is because he suspects that the tour guide is his long-time enemy, Darien, the right-hand-lackey to Lucian's evil and hated maker, Sophia. As the book progresses we get tons and tons of very long and boring flashbacks to all the battles Lucian, Sophia and Darien have fought over the centuries. And in not a single one of those flashbacks does Lucian have trouble recognizing his foes. So why isn't he sure if this tour guide is Darien or not?? He's got the same exact face, build and voice he's always had! And can't Lucian sense when another vampire is literally right in front of him? And, of course, Darien likewise fails to recognize that Lucian just happens to be in the tour, despite having spent the last thousand years or so repeatedly fighting him. Yeah, I call BS on that. And even if by some stretch we could suspend our disbelief enough to believe these two failed to recognize each other, why didn't Darien become suspicious when he saw Lucian using his vampire gaze to get the old and young to leave the group?? This whole premise was total crap.

And another thing, if Lucian was sufficiently sure that danger was imminent that he made the old and young leave, why the h*ll did he let all the other members of the tour walk into this certain death?? Why did he let Jade walk into this trap? As the story progresses Lucian makes out like he fell in love with Jade at first site because she reminds him of his long-dead wife. So if that's the case, why didn't he use his gaze to make her leave the tour along with the others? There's really no justification for this behavior.

They go to a tomb and Darien uses his own vampire gaze to enthrall one of the slutty bimbos so he can rip off her blouse and start drinking her blood....and Lucian stands by and does nothing while this girl is killed. Sophia rises from a nearby casket and starts chowing down on the bimbo's jerk boyfriend and all heck starts to break loose. Jade tries to run but is stopped by some walking corpses. Lucian finally joins the fight and Darien says something like "A-ha! I thought that was you, Lucian!" Which is just like...if you thought it was him, why'd you let him follow you back to your lair and mistress and then just carry on with the little lets-feast-on-the-jerk-American-tourists routine? It didn't make sense. Meanwhile Jade falls and hits her head and then the scene fades to black.

The story picks up a year later with Jade back home in New Orleans (of course, the only vampire-appropriate city in the US according to early vampire romance novels). Everyone in her family and circle of friends knows about the terrible time Jade had in Scotland and how she was a little "out of her mind" afterward because she kept insisting she'd seen vampires when everyone knows they don't exist. Funny thing is, though, despite Jade apparently believing that she'd seen the blood suckers a year ago, when they turn up in New Orleans in present day she determinedly buries her head in the sand for the aforementioned 3/4 of the book. It was really frustrating.

People start dying in very similar ways to the Scotland incident - drained of blood and with their head's ripped off - and it isn't long before the cops figure out that the one thing these people have in common is that they were all survivors of that night in the tomb. Naturally, Jade is the bad guys' primary target because they know Lucian loves her (somehow...) and want to hurt him as much as possible. But instead of sneak-attacking Jade right away so Lucian is dealt this devastating blow, they instead do the classic cheesy, bad movie-villain thing of "toying" with their intended target. After advertising their presence by bumping off the other nameless survivors, then they drop into New Orleans and start messing with people Jade knows.

Her hapless boyfriend, Rick, who everyone says is just the bestest, most stand up guy in the world but Jade just can't bring herself to desire enough for sex, has an off-camera chance encounter with Sophia and suddenly becomes "sick" to the point where he can barely get out of bed. Of course it turns out Sophia has been drinking his blood and he's suffering from severe anemia. Jade's step-mother falls afoul of Darien, who disguised himself as a cable man so she'd invite him into her house without asking for any ID. Yet, despite Darien having gone out of his way to establish that he, and all vampires, prefer the blood of the young and innocent, he not only bypasses the twin 2-year-old boys, he actually puts them in their cribs so they won't accidentally hurt themselves while he's sucking the life out of their mother. And, despite he and Sophia allegedly being evil incarnate, he not only doesn't kill the step mother, but he only bites her "a little bit" so she won't become a vampire herself, which is nonsense.

There were a lot of things about these vamps that the author kind of made up on the fly, or established and then contradicted herself on. She went on and on about how you have to cut the heads off the bite victims or they'll become vampires, but then after Rick and the step-mother are bitten, suddenly it has to be a really deep bite to get the job done? Oh please. If it's deep enough to draw blood, it's deep enough to infect them with the "taint" or whatever. Also Lucian can apparently teleport himself places at will just by thinking really hard, but he frequently arrives too late to prevent bad things from happening because he teleported to the end of the hall or outside the house or whatever instead of right to the action. How convenient. Garlic and crosses work "sometimes" on "some vampires" but holy water will work all the time...riiight. The vamps have to be invited in, in order to enter a place but apparently the person doing the inviting doesn't have to be the owner of the house or even acting of their own free will because they can just vamp-gaze someone, shove them through a door and then order the doped-up person to invite them inside and it works just fine. Seems like a handy trick for getting inside places. Why wouldn't they just haul a vamp-gazed human around with them wherever they went? Lucian can also apparently transform into a wolf if he feels like it, sure, why not. Sunlight doesn't burn, it only just sorta weakens them, but saltwater is deadly for some reason. (As an aside, if saltwater burns vamps just as bad as holy water, then how come for the rest of the book everyone insisted on raiding baptismal fonts in order to gain weapons? Salt water is a heck of a lot easier to come by because you can make it yourself at home!) Some newly made vamps arise as raving monsters, unable to control their bloodlust, and there's some indication that this can be linked to how evil their maker was, but that too only happens when it's convenient for the plot because Sophia, the Queen of Evil herself, made both Lucian and another vamp during the course of this book and they were both totally fine. A vampire's strength apparently has nothing to do with how old they are or how many years' experience they have at using their new vamp bodies and skills because when Lucian is newly made he's a match for both Darien and Sophia put together, which is a total crock.

Oh and my favorite part, there's an "unwritten law" that vampires can't kill each other. They just can't. It's a rule so, hands tied. Um, excuse me?? That's IT? That's the whole reason Lucian hasn't killed Sophia in any of their dozen or so epic battles over the millennia? And she hasn't killed him? Cuz it's against some rule that's not even written down? WHO CARES? News flash, it's a rule that humans aren't supposed to kill each other either (and we even wrote it down!!) but it's still recognized as necessary in certain circumstances. Why would vampires be any different? What's supposed to stop their numbers from growing out of control if they live forever and no one can kill them? And who the heck is going to enforce this rule anyway? Sophia is the oldest known vampire and Lucian is apparently the king of the vamps now. So between the two of them, they pretty much ARE the authority on vampire society. What did they think was going to happen if they killed each other? The earth would crack asunder? It was SUCH a lame excuse for Lucian not killing this evil, murdering witch all these centuries, thereby allowing her to terrorize Jade and her family, not to mention the hundreds, maybe thousands of other humans she munched on.

Seriously, the list of problems with this book goes on and on. Aside from the lame and poorly thought out world building, the plot itself is a snooze, considering that there are vampire fight scenes every few chapters. For starters, way, way too much time is spent on mundane human characters no one cares about. Jade belongs to a writing group and every single one of these people gets introduced and given a full backstory for no darn reason. A couple of them continue to feature in the story but they're more useless than the Scooby gang. They figure out that there are vampires afoot and insist they can help....even after the vamps have killed multiple people and Lucian says they won't stand a chance. Nope, they're totally unfazed by the threat of death and plan to help by - wait for it - searching the internet for information!!! Wow, just wow. Yeah, we totally needed a whole passel of annoying side characters to accomplish this task. Definitely couldn't have, you know, just had Jade work the search engine or anything.

Meanwhile, Jade's sister Shawna (sp? I listened to this in audiobook format), who knows absolutely everything that's going on, including the vampire angle and everything that happened in the tomb in Scotland a year ago, meets an attractive stranger with a Scottish accent who keeps popping up in places right around the time people die and she doesn't put it together that the guy is Darien until the last 1/10th of the book when it's convenient for the plot. Likewise, one of the twin boys keeps talking about how "the cable man" was standing outside the window or following them through the airport, etc. and she just brushes it off as the babblings of a kid....after the step-mother almost died and she too referred to a cable man just before her memory went dark. Oh come ON! I felt like I was reading the emperor's new clothes with this book because all of the characters stared right at piles and piles of evidence and insisted they couldn't see a connection. And as an aside, I thought it was very odd that no one even considered the idea that the step-mother might have been sexually assaulted. I mean, she was found topless, says the last thing she can remember is that the cable man was there (unexpectedly, no service call placed) and she's showing all the memory loss symptoms normally associated with date-rape drugs. And NOBODY thought to ask if she'd been abused? Maybe done a rape kit just to be sure? That's unbelievable.

And Jade was just a dumb as everyone else. She sees Lucian and feels this inexplicable draw to him, even "dreaming" that they're having sex when apparently it was happening in real life. She also was sure she'd seen vampires a year ago. Then the other tour members start dying and weird things start happening around her and she doesn't even consider that they're related. She even has a "dream" where she's being called to a cemetery and she climbs out her window and walks barefoot through the rough streets of New Orleans in her nightgown until she reaches the graveyard where she finally clues in to the fact that it's the evil Darien, not Lucian who called her....and yet after Lucian rescues her, she still insists there's no such thing as vampires. Seriously? She also decides to do the standard TSTL heroine thing of insisting on escaping from the nice people who are trying to keep her alive in favor of running headlong into danger for absolutely no reason. I hate when heroines do that.

And another thing that irked me was that Lucian never just explained the situation to Jade. He knows she's in danger and starts doing the creepy stalker thing by following her around and spying on her from the shadows. Then he does the even creepier thing of invading her mind and dreams and then ultimately her body without her even really understanding that it's happening in real life. Not cool dude. Then they finally actually hook up when Jade is awake and lucid and he warns her that she's in danger "from the tour guide from a year ago," but never just sits her down and gives her the whole "vampire are real" talk. I mean, what's up with that? He could give her a lot of really useful information, like how to KILL them, or what Sophia looks like, etc.. Instead he sticks with the dark and brooding thing and just sort of vaguely tells her not to invite anyone into her house. Oh yeah, I'm totally feeling your everlasting love and devotion to this chick, Lucian...Seriously, every single character in this book put on their idiot hats.

As for the romance aspect of this book I was seriously underwhelmed. Jade and Lucian spend very little time actually interacting with each other and know zilch about one another. We're supposed to believe that they're irresistibly drawn to each other but 99% of the time they're totally fine apart. We rarely see them thinking about each other in a longing way. And it was icky that Lucian only liked Jade because she resembled his dead wife. That just reinforces the idea that they don't really have a connection, it's just Lucian wanting to bang the body of his wife, the woman inside that body be damned. It didn't help that their love scenes were heavy on the "implied" sex and not so much on the actual description. I just never felt any sizzle between these two. And it didn't help that in practically every flashback we got of Lucian's very long undead life, we see him hooking up with a different girl, all of whom he had a stronger, more intimate relationship with than Jade. And yet after hardly interaction between our hero and heroine, at the end, Jade is insisting that she's so irrevocably in love with Lucian that she's willing to risk her life in a Hail Mary pass that MIGHT result in Lucian being turned back into a mortal. And, barring that option, she says she's willing to live with him anywhere; even sleep in the dirt with him if that's what he wants. I just didn't see any foundation for this level of devotion from her.

I was pretty disappointed in Sophia's part in this book too. They spent the whole 11 CDs going on and on about how evil and strong she was but when the book finally ended, she still hadn't actually done anything. Darien had done virtually all of the fighting and terrorizing while she stayed off screen "resting" or "biding her time" etc.. I expected that long wait to be paid off in the final epic battle where we'd finally get to witness the full extent of her power but that didn't happen. The final fight was incredibly short and the villains went down so fast you'd think someone had paid them to take a dive.


All in all this book was just a complete dud for me.

[Fran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Narrator Tanya Eby did a wonderful job. Her voice was light and dark alternating when necessary. However that wasn't enough to draw me into this. I found this neither to be a romance nor a true mystery. It was interesting in parts but then quickly fell apart.

[Mary23nm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed that it was a HFN (happy for now) ending. I would only continue the series to find out what happened to Jade and Lucian and it doesn't look like that happens.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the first book in the series, Beneath A Blood Red Moon, but once again the story seemed to fall apart towards the end of the book. The ending itself was extremely frustrating, and left more questions than answers.

I love the character of Lucian. He is a near-perfect anti-hero. However, his heroine Jade ended up coming off as somewhat whiny. The secondary characters (Jade's friends from her writers group especially) were for the most part entertaining, and provided a bit of much needed comic relief.

For me, the single biggest problem was the fact that Lucian & Jade's future was left pretty much up in the air. The ending to BABRM while extremely far fetched in it's resolution, at least left little doubt as to the path that Maggie & Sean were on. Where as with this book, the reader is left feeling more than a little cheated out of a proper ending.

[JackieB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a good PNR. It had good believable characters and the plot generally built up tension well. The only slight drawback for me was that there were a series of flashbacks which filled in one character's backstory. I didn't think that it really needed filling in with the amount of detail (and flashbacks) which were used. I thought the flashbacks "diluted" the build up of tension in the main plot a little. However, I am not a big fan of flashbacks, so that may account for my feelings about them in this book.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

After picking this up as an afterthought in a used bookstore for $1, this was much better than I expected. The worldbuilding was very good and I like the characters. Plot development and pacing could have used some serious work. I thought this was the 1st in the series but I was wrong. Reading in order may have helped with the issues I had with it. I liked it enough that I'll pick up the others if available cheap and used as well.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as excellent as the first. A connection is felt between the characters, Jade and Lucian in particular, but with her sister, father, stepmother, and friends alike. The suspense and action was perfectly blended and kept me coming back for more. Drake's descriptions put you in the middle of the story with no going back. Can't wait to read Book #3, Deep Midnight.

[Phoebebb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book turned me into a reader. I never really liked reading ... until I found the right subject. This book introduced me to the world of vampires which inspired me to explore more into the paranormal world of reading. It is still to this day one of my very favorite books, and will always hold the very first memory I have of that feeling after you have just read a very good book.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heather Graham is one of my favorite authors. I don't think she could write a bad book if she tried. I am in love with "HER" New Orleans & the tours she gives us with her books. I love the mystery & suspense in which she weaves her tales. Delightful.

[Diane Paules · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

The only thing I didn't like was the poor editing. Look past that and you have a wonderful story of love and vampires. I really enjoyed reading about Maggie, Sean, and Lucien again. A great read if you are a fan of the genre. loved it.

[Barb (Boxermommyreads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must have purchased a really old Kindle copy when I was looking for this book (for some reason, none of my Libby cards had access to it) because it was full of typos and punctuation errors, and I found it often pulling me out of the story. However, all that aside, once I did manage to focus on the plot and not the small details (although is proper editing a small detail?) I really liked it.

Jade was visiting Scotland a year before the majority of the book happened, doing research for one of her books. While on a tour, she and several other people are led to a dark cemetery and an incident happens which ends in major bloodshed and dismemberment for some of the other tourists, and almost death for Jade. She is basically saved by a mysterious dark man and when she comes to, has a hard time grasping what actually occurred. Fast forward a year and similar killing sprees are happening in the US. However, upon closer look, the victims are people who survived the Scotland incident. Jade keeps having dreams about the man who saved her and soon her shows up in New Orleans and introduces her to a world she never thought existed, one of vampires and ancient vampire history. Can he save her before it's too late?

I won't lie, Jade kind of grated my nerves. She made some stupid decisions and even when faced with the fact that the man she was falling in love with was a centuries old vampire, refused to believe what was staring her in the face. I also didn't like that Jade had a perfectly good cop boyfriend who she cheated on with Lucien, her vampire love interest. On top of that, while he on his deathbed with a mysterious illness. Yet I did love Lucien, who played a major role in book one, and I did enjoy learning more about his history and seeing him finally fall in love and find a mate. We get to see the main characters from book one quite a bit which I enjoyed, and I found Jade's family and friend group interesting as well.

Overall, I'm glad I continued on with this series and would probably have given this a higher rating if it wasn't for the issues I mentioned regarding editing and Jade's cheating. If you like vampires or enjoy Heather Graham and have never picked up this series, it might be something you want to consider.

[The Bookish Vixen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that was really terrible. What in the hell? I read the first book in the series last year, and remember enjoying it well enough. And this one starts in Scotland! And goes to New Orleans! Vampires! Sounds promising! **very minor spoilers to follow**

I lost count of all the many ridiculous plot holes and inconsistencies in this book. I was enjoying it, despite its many flaws, up until about 2/3 through the book, at which point my patience ran out. Because it got stupid AND boring. I skimmed the last quarter of the book — why did I even bother? I literally finished the book tossed it aside, and told my husband, “Well, that was stupid. And terrible.”

Remember in the Princess Bride, when the dude is just mostly dead? Well, this reminded me of that, only not funny. A vampire bite is always deadly!! Well, just mostly deadly. Sometimes not at all. You always turn if your bitten!! Well, except when they just bite a little bit. Then you’re probably ok? What is their unit of measurement for bitten badly, or not so badly? If they feed from you, you’re definitely their slaves!! Sometimes. The vampire loves the sweet taste of child’s blood!!!! But he’ll pass on an easy meal if the reader might get mad at him for snacking on babies. He’ll even put them in their cribs (P.S. these “babies” are 3 years old) before taking just a little blood from their mom. But he won’t bite her “too bad”. Just the little bit bad. She’ll be ok. And yet the same vampire will tear non-main characters limb from literal limb. Because we aren’t attached to them, so it’s ok. They’re the red shirts. Sure. Ok.

And the TSTL moments are plentiful. And then somehow, a basic boring novel writer magically becomes a computer hacker for a minute. Out of the blue. And she’s friends with the heroine, but then for no apparent reason, she’s suddenly “that pesky friend”. Huh? And EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE BOOK MAGICALLY ENDS UP IN SCOTLAND for the final anti-climactic scene. Whaaaat? How? Why? WHY?!

I could go on. And on. But I won’t. I am soooo officially done with this series it’s not even funny.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure why I continue to try to like Heather Graham's books, other than they are fluffy and mindless so I can read them during very busy times in my life.
This kindle edition was so very full of misspellings and lack of punctuation that it really began to annoy me. I usually can overlook some of that type thing, but goodness, when even the character names are misspelled so they seem like different people when you can tell from the surrounding story they are the same, its time to rethink your editor. Of course, I'm not a writer, editor, or in the publishing business.
I did enjoy the story for the first two-thirds, however, the last third just started to fall apart, in my opinion. Jade MacGregor seemed to be an intelligent person, writer, business woman, world traveler so rather savvy to surroundings. She was involved in a horribly traumatic event in Scotland, at the beginning of the book. It set the stage for the remainder of the book and was somewhat exciting. She is surrounded by a loving family and groups of friends who are supportive in the treatment she has needed to survive the trauma. And now it seems there are stirrings in her hometown of New Orleans, which repeatedly remind her of the horror she experienced.
Lucian DeVeau is also a main character who was involved in the happenings in Scotland. Their lives become entwined in the hunt for the evil that is stirring due to an evil vampire, Sophia and her minion Darrian. During all the happenings, Jade seems fairly clear thinking and intelligent. She listens when Lucian tells her to Not open the door for anyone, etc. However, suddenly she and her supportive family and friends loose common sense and decide they can "Help" hunt these evil vampires. Really?? They fly off on their own and of course get into trouble and caught up into a traumatic fight of good vs. evil. By then I was so ready for the foolishness and typos to be over I just kept reading so I could say I had finished it. *sigh* I just can't be dragged into another of her novels.

[Judy Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jade MacGregor survives a horrific massacre in a Scottish Cemetary. The stories she tells of that night sound crazy, even to her, so eventually, she accepts that what she thinks she saw was really just shock and horror. And then there is another massacre, this time in America, and one of the victims was another survivor. Then, the man Jade believes saved her life in Scotland suddenly appears in her life. And she starts to wonder if she is losing her mind.

So. This one was better than the first. Sex scenes for the heroes did not include words like force or violence. I appreciated that. However, I generally like Heather Graham's women (my copy is by Graham, but I can't get it to let me change), but Jade really started to bother me. Truthfully, her insistence on everything being impossible is probably rational, but it got irritating. Of course, her sister was even worse.

Here's the thing. If someone you love has experienced a real life nightmare, they need to heal. You cannot heal by "forgetting" about it. Someone who has survived something like the massacre described at the beginning of this book is going to have issues and is at risk for PTSD. Basically Shauna was always just get over it. Just get on with your life. Here, I don't care how you feel about this guy, you need to sleep with him and have relationship with him because it will make you normal. Shauna was an asshole. She never got better.

[Am · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm trash for Heather Graham and I recently realized she wrote this series under the pen- name Shannon Drake. First off.... I'm not sure this book had an editor. There were quite a few spelling or typo errors. The book still had it's typical fast easy read that I go to Graham for.
That being said, Jade is the most annoying female lead that Graham has written. She makes rash stupid decisions and drove me nuts.

[Mary Helman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing Story

A delightful tale that pirouettes between heartwarming connections and character arcs so sharp they could slice through literary butter! The interpersonal dynamics dance with such charming synchronicity, you'd think these characters were choreographed by a social symphony conductor. Utterly captivating!

[Rowan Creech · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this Alliance Vampires series. I love all the characters. It is wonderful when an author can write the characters in a story to the point that they feel like a comfortable friend in your life and you can't wait to hear more about their lives and adventures.

[Angela D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and hard to put down - a story of vampires and love and vengeance, you can’t go wrong with that. You’ll fall in love with the lead, Lucian… and want to roll your eyes at Jade (sometimes her decisions border on too stupid to live). But it is very enjoyable!

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Predictable at best.
Read the paperback version and there were dozens of typos!

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting a mystery I picked off our Church library, but this is a Vampire book and I wasn't impressed. Maybe if I hadn't read the Twilight series first, it would have been better.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are typos, not just a few, but they can be worked around. I liked this one a lot

[Hedy Sternberger]

!.......

I enjoyed reading the book. As matter of fact I read over again when I out of things to read. A negative is that the book poorly edited. Too many typing errors.

[Valerie Dix · Rating 5 out of 5]

If ya love vampires, you'll love this series!!! Highly recommend!!!

[Ania Halama · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the vampire stories I liked. It wasn't to cliche (well, for me) and you'll be surely excited to turn the page to the next.

[Teresa R.Fieck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Book

Ms Graham never disappoints . She kept me on the edge of my seat never sure what would happen next.Great series.