From the author of the Living in Eden books comes the debut
of a brand new paranormal romance, the first in a darker
Vampire series where the innocent are caught up in a bloody
struggle for dominance.
Jillian Conrad is having a perfectly ordinary Tuesday when,
in the space of a few minutes, she finds herself a hostage
of a mad scientist who injects her with poison. The only
person with a chance of saving her life is the same
murdering bastard who killed the man who created it.
Thus begins a journey into a world where vampires are real,
and a secret government-funded agency seeks any means of
destroying them, the most recent the poison that has turned
Jillian Conrad into a secret weapon.
Declan Reyes is Damphyr; the result of a vampire's assault
and rape of his mother. He takes a serum eight times a day
to keep his darker instincts from overwhelming him, but the
cost is high, he also loses his humanity in the drug-dulled
automaton he becomes. His increased strength and speed of
healing helps him in his overriding mission to kill any
vampire desperate enough to feed above ground, although his
human form pays the price of disfiguring scars.
Although NIGHTSHADE indeed heralds a darker series from an
author known for giving readers belly-laughs, the book was
not unremittingly grim. Rowan slips in some wry and funny
moments while keeping the characters' jeopardy high and the
suspense ratcheting tighter. She set herself a difficult
task, peopling the book with heroes and villains drawn with
textured nuances, no one is wholly bad, nor wholly good, and
there is a terrific plot twist near the end.
A novella in the Nightshade series (installment 1.5) is
coming out in the story collection Primal the same
day as NIGHTSHADE, and the second book in the series,
Bloodlust is due out in July of this year.
Jillian Conrad never believed in vampires-until she was
unwillingly injected with a serum that was supposed to act
as a deadly poison to them. Now, tormented half-vampire
Declan Reese wants her blood to destroy the undead kingdom.
Unfortunately, the serum has also made her blood
irresistible to all vampires-including Declan, whose desire
for Jillian is more than mere hunger.
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