"Before Midnight" by Jennifer Blackstream

Before Midnight by Jennifer Blackstream

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


At first, I was quite confused with this story. I didn't understand what was happening in the beginning of this story. After reading through the whole book, I finally had a better understanding of where the story was going.

This story is a beautiful adaptation of Cinderella. However, this "Cinderella" is a Loup Garou, a bitten werewolf. Her fairytale prince is a lycanthrope, a natural born werewolf. There is a difference! This story turned out to be a sweet paranormal fairy tale. The female protagonist is a weak scared little girl, fearful of everything. She has a horrible, hateful stepmother and stepsisters who love killing wolves. But, she doesn't stay that small fearful girl for very long. Love brings her to a place where she accepts her wolf & uses it to try to save her prince.

I did find that there were certain parts of the story that lacked definition. I would have liked a little more description of the love scenes... I don't necessarily need it written erotically, but with more feeling. It seemed short and felt like it was missing something. However, the rest of the story, with all its action, seemed to flow very well. I would definitely recommend reading this book if you enjoy paranormal romance stories.

Get your copy of Before Midnight (Book 1) (Blood Prince Series).


View all my reviews

"A Blood Seduction: A Vamp City Novel" by Pamela Palmer

A Blood Seduction by Pamela Palmer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Wow! That about sums up my impression of this first of the book series Vamp City, "A Blood Seduction: A Vamp City Novel" by Pamela Palmer! Overall, this was an awesome story. Yes, there were parts in this story that dragged and were slow. And, yes, there were parts where I felt there was a lot of violence and perhaps, a bit too graphic. But I believe the author did a great job of impressing on the reader of just how vile these creatures really are.

This author brings our understanding of Vampires to a whole new level. Here, vampires live in Vamp City, a dark version of Washington D.C. Magic made this city what it is, an 1870’s carbon copy of Washington D.C. without sunlight; perfect for the vampires who reside inside it. But the magic is dying and sunlight is breaking through! The city needs to be restored if vampires are to continue living in Vamp City.
Quinn Lennox lives in current Washington D.C. with her brother Zack. Quinn works in a lab for the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Lately, Quinn has been seeing visions that she can only label as Shimmers. These Shimmers have done strange things to her as she passes through them. They seem to change the colors of her clothing and the interior of her car. She can no longer take public transit because, how would she explain these changes? Sometimes, Quinn can see through the Shimmers, into what seems to be another time or perhaps another world.

Disappearances are reported daily of individuals who have never returned home. They have just vanished. This includes Zack’s friend, Lily. As Quinn and Zack look for Lily, they stumble upon another Shimmer near their apartment that only Quinn can see. They are pulled through this Shimmer into this other world.

Vamp City, also named V.C., is a dark place, and not just because there is no sunlight. In this city, a great sorcerer cast a magic spell to create this city where vampires could live without the threat of sunlight. The magic also locked in the vampires from getting out into the real world, which is a good thing, because the horrors that Quinn Lennox experiences after being sucked into this world through a shimmer of light would make everyone thankful that these vampires weren’t in our world. Palmer’s vampires feed not just from blood, but also from emotions.

V.C. is old and decrepit. Vampires rule over slave humans. Slaves feed all the vampires’ needs; blood, sex, pain, fear, anything a vampire needs or wants to sustain them, and then their memories are wiped and it’s done to them again. Vampires are mean sadistic creatures. They live off of a person’s fear or pain and will inflict whatever is necessary to bring the emotion that best feeds their needs.

Arturo, a vampire who feeds from the fear of his slaves, saves Quinn from her captors as she enters the vampire city. But Arturo’s intent is only to feed from her fear and her blood. After feeding from her blood, he realizes that Quinn is not your normal human. She has sorcerer blood in her veins. Because of this, he feels Quinn may be their savior. She may be able to renew the magic that hides Vamp City.

I’m intrigued with this series and can’t understand why I waited so long to finish reading this book. It is a very dark, grim story where vampires truly are frightening. But the story has a beautiful love story in it. Through this love, we begin to see compassion from some of these frightening vampires.

The book ends with you knowing that you have to read the next book. Many questions go unanswered as our heroine is sent back into her own world. You get a sense that Quinn & Zack are not done in Vamp City. Somehow, you just know they have may have a vendetta. At the very least, they still have to rescue Lily!

I highly recommend this book! If you love vampires and all that’s paranormal, you will LOVE this book! The world and characters in this book are very well developed. The story is very believable!

View all my reviews

"Kiss Across Time" by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Kiss Across Time by Tracy Cooper-Posey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I originally downloaded this book because it was an erotic romance with vampires and time travel in it, and it was free at the time. I’m always looking for new books to read with new ideas.

"KISS ACROSS TIME," by Tracy Cooper-Posey was refreshing and original with regard to bringing different nuances to a story. Most vampire books do not have ménage a trois in them. If they do, usually there is a build up to the threesome. However, with this book, the ménage a trois romance IS the story. This romance is a M/F/M romance with a quick glimpse at F/M/M. It’s interesting that in this story, the two male vampires are lovers before the female steps into the story, so one would figure there would be more focus on their relationship first. However, it is not. It is all about the woman and the connection the two men have with her.

As I began reading this story, I thought I had made a mistake. The story read well. The author has talent in writing. However, I couldn’t grasp how this woman, who had just lost her job because she could not nail down her thesis to facts, falls into this ménage a trois. She’s lured into her neighbor’s apartment with the sound of death metal music, using a poem from an ancient poet’s book that she had been researching but could never find any existence of. Yet here it was hidden in a death metal song.

When she’s introduced to the metal band that produced the song, sucked into a time travel memory through the kiss of the group leader/singer. She comes back to the present time, in the middle of the concert, wishing she could explore more. But she’s swept away by security to go backstage to meet the band. This I found interesting. But when the group leader introduces her to another man, his lover, to see what would happen if he were to kiss her, the two fall into a time travel memory as well. Instead of them coming back as the kiss ended, they break out into a rip-your-clothes-off erotic scene during the memory. When they arrive back to present time, they’re found in the throes of passion there too.

Here’s where I became confused. Although Taylor seemed to want to find out more about the time traveling, which I understand, all three of them find themselves trying to travel together by having a threesome together. We get our first glimpse of anal sex, which seemed over simplified. Both men, the woman finds out during sex, are vampires. They’ve tasted her sexually and tasted her blood, which “marks” her as theirs. She is now what we know as a "human servant."

This all happens in one night.

In order to time travel, they must have sex together. It doesn’t happen unless there is sex. There seems to be no real plot to this story, or at the very least, a weak plot. We just see that Taylor is obsessed with a poet from King Arthur’s time. These two vampires, Brody and Veris, can lead her to learning more. But the story had a lot of gaps for me. I found myself scratching my head, wondering how something like that could happen.

I suppose the best way to sum this book up is, good story, great potential, no substance. I wish the author would have spent more time beefing up the story. I may have to read this one again, just to be sure I didn't miss anything.


View all my reviews