England’s “vampire craze” causes much vexation for the Lord Vampire of London, Ian Ashton. To save his reputation, Ian enlists aspiring authoress Angelica Winthrop without realizing she has hidden plans of her own.
Angelica Winthrop’s life goal is to ruin her reputation, avoid marriage, and become a gothic authoress like her idol, Mary Shelley. To find inspiration for her new story, she breaks into the home of Ian Ashton, Duke of Burnrath, not knowing she will be coming up against the Lord Vampire of London. Romance sparks and reputations are at stake. But who knows the real difference between fact and fiction?
The heroine is a spunky, liberated, would-be writer that wants to throw off the shackles of being under her marriage minded mama and be free to be a spinster authoress. How does she propose to achieve this goal? Ruination, of course!
Okay, so already you should be getting clear signals this is not a traditional Reg Rom. But wait–there is more. And by more, I mean VAMPIRES!
Vampires in Ann’s version follow some of the conventions of vampirilia, and some conventions are busted…basically to allow them to stand in front of mirrors and eat garlicky food in the haute ton without being outed.
However, will someone for the love of all that’s holy explain to me how the heck an undead man with no circulatory system–because he is undead—is supposed to get an erection?! This is a paranormal romance condundrum and frankly asking for WAY too much suspension of disbelief. I suppose eating the blood replaces it in the veins..although if they are digesting it through their mouths it goes into their stomach—ARGH! I JUST DON’T GET IT!
Okay, so you can tell paranormal is really not my thing. Well, actually you could probably tell that from the general leanings of my blog. The only vampire books I like are:
But this sounded like such a funny, cute concept that I didn’t hesitate to snatch it up. And I thought the title was peculiar and hilarious.
And really, there are some funny, cute parts of the book. Ann seems to have a decent grasp on the era, and her H/h are pretty standard for the genre (although some Reg Readers will find Angelica either prochronistic or annoying as heck). And readers who love paranormal will enjoy this new take on the vampire book.
I just honestly couldn’t get into it. Mostly, because I would get distracted by the implausability of vampire erections. But in part because the secondary characters tended to pull me out of the narrative rather than adding to it…so I got a bit lost, then a bit bored.
However, GoodReaders generally seem to be fans so if vampires are your jam and you like historical/mass market Regency you might try this as a fun mash up.
3 out of 6 Generally, the H/h are likeable enough for even those of us paranormal rom skeptics.
| Content Rating/Heat Index | |
|---|---|
| Mature Content |   |
| Sex scandals, mistresses/manstresses, etc | |
| Intimacy | |
| Yep. And frequent talk of aroused body parts. | |
| Violence | |
| Fight scenes, murderous villians, lots of biting | |
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Adult subject matter and intimate scenes. Probably most enjoyable for mature audiences. | |
