Shadows On The Soul
Jenna Black
Published 2007 293 pages
Summary (from the book jacket)
Gabriel is a five-hundred-year-old vampire with the soul of a Killer. He has defeated his mother in a battle for the territory of Baltimore, and vowed to take vengeance upon his father, the Master of Philadelphia, for a centuries-old betrayal.
Jezebel, Gabriel's new fledgling, is a soul as scarred as his own, yet Gabriel finds that the ice around his heart slowly melts when she is near. But one of Gabriel's ancient enemies has targeted her--and if Gabriel wants to save her, he will have to abandon his plans for revenge and join forces with his father.
The question is not whether or not Gabriel can redeem himself from his past, but whether he can ever forgive himself.
The Review
Shadows On The Soul is the third book in the Guardians Of The Night paranormal romance series by Jenna Black. The story stands well on its own so you don’t have to have read the previous novels first before reading this one but the reader may appreciate Gabriel’s redemption more if they met him in Secrets In The Shadows first.
Initially Gabriel is a difficult character to like. He is a Killer (a vampire who preys on humans) with an appalling past. He has five hundred years of cruelty and very, very bad behaviour behind him. Born a vampire, Gabriel has never been human and he is a hugely powerful vampire as he has few of the weaknesses of a conventional vampire.
When Gabriel turned Jezebel into a vampire, saving her from certain death, he also inadvertently created a psychic bond between himself and his fledgling. It is this bond that allows Jezebel to see the damaged man hiding behind Gabriel’s tough façade.
It is a testament to the author’s skill as a romance writer that she successfully managed to turn Gabriel from a character that a reader could easily hate into a character that a reader can’t help but love within the space of one novel. Part of the trick was to introduce some vampire characters that were so thoroughly evil anybody who stood against them would look good. These characters commit some horrid acts and reading about them isn’t for the faint hearted or squeamish.
Shadows On The Soul doesn’t just deliver hot romance but dishes up a large portion of exciting urban fantasy with its fast paced sub-plot line. The vampire mythology is well realized and totally believable, each book reveals more of the vampires’ world and in this book the reader finally gets to find out why Eli (the leader of the Guardians) never leaves his home.
The Guardian of The Night series has gone from strength to strength, with each book revealing more about the world of the Killers and of the Guardians and each book packing more romantic punch than the last. This is vampire romance with a hard edge, the characters are realistically complex and some of the situations that they deal with are brutal and/or cruel but this just makes for an even better read. Vampire fans will enjoy the vampire world and vampire hunting, romance fans will love the taming of Gabriel, the ultimate bad boy, through the power of love.
Shadows On The Soul is highly recommended reading for vampire romance fans who like their men with added bite.
LoveVampires Review Rating:
Related Links
Reviews of other books by this author
You can read an excerpt from Watchers In The Night and find out more about the Guardians at Jenna’s site.
Read Jenna's LoveVampires author interview.
Other recommended books
Hungers of The Heart by Jenna Black
Halfway To The Grave by Jeaniene Frost
Night Lost by Lynn Viehl
Blood Drive by Jeanne C. Stein
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