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Title: Prince of the Night by Jasmine Cresswell ISBN: 0-451-40566-8 Publisher: Topaz Pub. Date: July, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (11 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Forget all previous Vampire legends; Spellbinding
Comment: Reviews for this novel are mixed but favorable. I have the same mixed feeling for all the same reasons. We learn that Vam-pyre's are actually an alien species stranded for 4,000 years in a shipwreck. Awaiting the return of a ship to take them home, the all male contingent study humans and attempt to reproduce; with horrible results. Most human women do not survive the mating process and even fewer live babies are born to them.
It is now 1859 and the Count of Albion finds himself with a serious problem. He is a Vam-pyre who has given up trying to reproduce but like all Vam-pyre men, when the "mating" season approaches he is driven to complete the act. Now, three unattended women have appeared at his home in Italy. He is drawn to Cordelia, the poor relation and companion to "Mrs. Ford." A maid is also in attendance. Mrs. Ford is the daughter of an earl, traveling incognito in an attempt to conceal her out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The concealment causes great concern in the political turmoil of Austria against Italy. Are they really spies?
I enjoyed Cordelia as our heroine. Her compassion, command of language and muted psychic ability makes her an interesting character. The Count treats her like an equal throughout the book which is a break from a traditional historical novel. Cordelia is NO shrinking violet. The Count, Dakon, reveals so much in his conversations with her. A man torn with the desire to make the world a better place and desire to make love to Cordelia. His torment is painful to watch. But she falls in love with him no matter what horrors are revealed. There were so many twists to the storyline, I could not figure out if it could result in anything resembling a happy ending.
The other characters are half-formed and as noted in other reviews, drop out at the end with no resolution to their stories. I am not into political intrigue so those portions of the story, though well-written did not hold my interest but that is my personal feeling. Much of the story is left untold, but just let your imagination fill in the blanks and you will have an enjoyable, edge-of-the-chair novel to occupy a few hours.
Rating: 3
Summary: A fairly intelligent Gothic vampire romance
Comment: Cordelia, the 'poor relation' of the Earl of Stanwyck, is escorting her cousin Lady Mary through Italy to a summer home of the Earl's. Mary has fallen from grace and has been banished to Italy until she's fit to be seen again. The only problem is that no-one will agree to take the visitors to the Villa of the Three Fountains.
It is the mid-1800s, and Italy is divided, parts of the country under Austrian rule. And part of the problem is that the locals in Modena don't know whether Cordelia and her companions are in league with the Austrians; of course, that's not helped when a couple of Austrian army officers offer to escort the women to the villa. When they arrive, they find that the villa is occupied - by the Count of Albion, an Italian nobleman who claims that his father and grandfather owned it before him.
The Count reluctantly agrees to let the women stay, but Cordelia realises very soon that there's something extremely odd about him. They have a strange mental connection which very soon has her visualising herself in bed with him, making love with him... and allowing him to bite her throat. And she's not even afraid of the idea of it!
The Count, for his part, is desperately fighting his attraction to Cordelia; the last time he slept with a woman, he killed her, and he doesn't want that to happen to Cordelia. Unfortunately, she's come to him during his 'in heat' period, when he desperately needs to mate and to procreate. Can he keep himself away from her?
In the background to this novel is the struggle for independence against Austrian rule, and the Count is deeply involved here, though not in the way he may initially appear. This is an interesting and intelligent aspect of the story, which makes it even more disappointing that it simply vanishes as the story concludes. Cresswell also omits to provide any sort of closure for Cordelia's cousin Mary; she simply disappears from the narrative after a while. This sloppiness prevents this book getting a higher rating. Incidentally, I also agree with another reviewer about the idiotic character names.
Cresswell's vampire mythology is rather different from that of any other writer I've come across, and I'm not entirely sure that I like it. Her vampires, as we discover at the beginning of the book, are actually aliens from another planet. They don't appear to need to avoid the daylight. And, most strange of all, they can reproduce, as long as the woman they mate with survives the encounter.
Anyway, this is a readable book, but not a keeper for me.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good vampire historical
Comment: This is a surprisingly strong vampire historical romance, one that combines a vampire romance with a historical one - and in a slightly unusual setting - northern Italy 1859 at the height of the Italian fight for independence (or Piedmont's struggle to oust the Austrians from Modena etc).
I really don't have that much to add to what praise has been given by other readers. Like them, I appreciated the unusual setting and time period (there being a surfeit of historical romances set in England in the Regency). Like them, I appreciate the skilful interplay of the story with the historical background - along with the author's careful description of the location, the minor characters, and so forth.
What really stood out was however not the historical detail, or the unusual setting. It was the hero and the heroine. The hero is a mysterious Italian nobleman (although we soon guess his identity and his problem). The heroine is a sensible Englishwoman, the poor relation of a great English house who is escorting a petulant cousin "in trouble" to a safe haven owned by her father. Not only is Cordelia a delightful person to know (with even her more unusual linguistic and psychic skills explained), but she reacts relatively calmly to her discovery of the hero's various secrets. She is actually more worried by a murder of a servant than by any threats to her life (perhaps a bit unwisely).
The hero is also truly remarkable - and totally different from Christine Feehan's Carpathian super-alpha males. We do not doubt Dakon's determination or the difficult choices facing him. We do recognize the effort he must put into staying away from Cordelia. Time and time again, faced with almost overwhelming temptation, he refuses to give in.
I mentioned Feehan's Carpathians for a reason. It is a pity that Cresswell did not follow up on this book (or perhaps it is just as well). Cresswell's Vam-pyres and Feehan's Carpathians have some things in common, but many things are different (including their origins and their habits). One problem facing both societies is the lack of females of their kind, and how they should relate to human females (if at all).
My only quibbles with the books was firstly with the names of the hero and his father (which nearly beset me with giggles), and secondly with a couple of nearly irrational moves made by Cordelia. In addition, while I liked this book very much, it did not quite make keeper status for me. It was a four for me, but it may be a keeper for you.
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Title: I Burn For You by Susan Sizemore ISBN: 0743467426 Publisher: Pocket Star Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Deeper Hunger by Sabine Kells ISBN: 0843935936 Publisher: Leisure Books Pub. Date: March, 1994 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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Title: Midnight Pleasures by Amanda Ashley, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Ronda Thompson, Maggie Shayne ISBN: 0312987625 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 17 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: His Immortal Embrace by Hannah Howell, Lynsay Sands, Sara Blayne, Kate Huntington ISBN: 0758204752 Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: My Lord Eternity by Debbie Raleigh ISBN: 0821775502 Publisher: Zebra Books (Mass Market) Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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