Kiss Of Crimson; Lara Adrian

This is the second book in the Midnight Breed series and was published in June 2007by Dell. I dearly hope Ms. Adrian harbors many story ideas for this series, well done vampires are some of my favorite material. And I’m nothing but loyal when it comes to series books. I’m still reading the Merry Gentry books for heaven’s sake! LOL

As in the first book, the overarching plot continues to develop. The evil Rogues intent on conquering the world have unleashed a new and fearsomely potent weapon. Kiss of Crimson focuses on Teresa (Tess) Culver DVM, her would be lover Ben Sullivan and her inadvertent Breedmate Dante. There’s also the Darkhaven FBI equivalent running around Boston investigating the disappearance of a large number of vampire youth.

It seems to be a requirement that romance heroes have some kind of impediment to forming an emotional bond with the heroine. Vampire heroes don’t seem to be an exception to this rule. Longevity, I suppose, would by its very nature create and reinforce these issues. To my mind Dante’s fears of bonding with Tess are superficial at best, but I admit this didn’t occur to me until after I was done reading.

Tess seems to suffer from the requisite lack of self esteem as well as a traumatic childhood. Like the heroine in the previous Midnight Breed book, Tess is pretty much a loner without too many close friends and family. IMO this probably eases the women’s transition into the vampire world. In my mind certain things were glossed over that I would like to have seen discussed, but these stories don’t go much beyond the initial flush of romantic love and sexual attachment.

I always wonder about some of the heroines in paranormal romances. The ones who end up significantly changing their lives and by implication the careers many of them have built. Apparently the subject doesn’t come up during the ‘conversion’ process, I guess. Most of the time the hero brings her into his world without too much serious thought towards what she’ll potentially be forced to give up. Are the readers not supposed to think about these things? Am I expected to accept that these issues will be addressed later- after he’s completely changed the parameters of her life? I dunno, maybe the amazingly hot powerful vampire sex makes it all worthwhile.

Meantime, despite all of these questions I heartily enjoyed Ms. Adrian’s Kiss of Crimson. I already have the next two books in the series buried in my TBR. The dermaglyphs continue to fascinate me. Write on Ms. Adrian! 