Red Hot Books
Aiden is a vampire who has made it his mission to kill the rogues among his kind. He is good at what he does; and he takes pleasure where he can find it: like in the arms or the vein a beautiful woman. His hunts take him across the continent, so he has few ties and that’s ok with him. The thing is, it’s not always easy to track his prey. Sometimes he has to hunt them for weeks or months at a time. Until he finds an easier way.
Samantha has just enough of a psychic gift to be drawn to high energy locations. Usually, it’s a powerful storm some other turbulent event in nature. Her dreams help her find the phenomenon, and then she makes her living photographing them. Imagine her surprise when one of her predicted locations leads her not to a storm, but to a dangerous and sexy vampire!
Sam had no idea vamps even existed, but coming face to face with Aiden makes her want to learn more. Soon, more and more of her dream premonitions take her to the scenes of vampire violence, and Aiden can’t help but see the great opportunity that presents. The two end up working together: Sam as a reluctant weather-vein for rouge vamps –and Aiden, the hunter that takes them down. It’s in working together, the two eventually give in their attraction to one another and, later, fall in love.
It took me a little while to connect with story. My biggest issue was with the basic premise. I never felt like I got a good explanation for why Sam’s gift is what it is. I mean, predicting weather events in dreams is kind of… odd. I didn’t really find it all that compelling in the way of psychic ju-ju. Beyond that, why did it suddenly start channeling vampire violence? Yes, apparently Aiden brings out that side of her gift with his proximity, but she lives with a vampire right down the street, so… why didn’t this happen before? I don’t get it. Plus, bad weather and vampire attacks seem like two highly unrelated things to get premonitions about.
However, if you can put that aside, it’s a pretty good romance — one that gets better as the book progresses. We see a lot of growth in Aiden as he falls for Sam. I liked watching him reveal himself to her on a personal level (and my interest was piqued by some of his backstory.) The sexual tension is good; the sex is hot; and I believed in the emotion that drove the development of the relationship. I thought the characters were well drawn, with enough of their history peppered in to make them three dimensional. And the handful of secondary characters were peppered in enough to see the bigger picture that Aiden is a part of.
This is book two in Norah Wilson’s Vampire Romance series, and while references are made to the first book, this stands up completely as a standalone.
Rating: B/B-
*Book provided for judging in RONE awards