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Embracing Darkness

Margaret Carter

Published 2005             250 pages

Synopsis

When her niece was brutally murdered, Linnet Carroll blamed herself.  After all Deanna had been living with her at the time that she fallen in with a bad crowd and maybe if Linnet had been more vigilant she could have stopped Deanna from moving in with her new boyfriend and then she wouldn’t have been killed alongside side him when some psycho beheaded him.

Determined to find the person responsible for the murders and bring them to justice, she waits outside the house where Deanna and Anthony had attended wild parties.  The house is deserted but Linnet soon finds that she is not alone in her vigil.

Maxwell Tremayne wants revenge too.  Anthony was his younger brother and Max grieves for his loss.  Unlike Linnet, Max knows exactly who is responsible for the murders and he plans to find them and kill them.  He also knows that this is no task for a human female to get involved with because the person ultimately responsible is Nola, a three hundred year old vampire who has been preying on young people in the area.  Like Nola, Max is a vampire too.

Linnet convinces Max that he needs her help to catch Nola.  Believing all humans are inferior to vampires, he reluctantly agrees that they should work together.  Linnet proves to be resistant to vampire hypnosis which makes it hard for him to keep the truth about his origins from her.  He could try to force her compliance to his will but he finds himself strangely reluctant to do so. 

After years of scoffing at other vampires who let themselves become emotionally entangled with humans he finds that he could be in danger of doing the very same thing himself.

The Review

Embracing Darkness is a vampire romance published by the Silhouette Books imprint of Harlequin.  Its years since I have read a Silhouette romance, and I’ve never read a paranormal Silhouette romance, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I was pleased to find that it was a well written and carefully crafted story.

The author has created her own unique world of vampire mythology that is original, detailed and incredibly well thought out.  The vampires in Embracing Darkness are not undead humans but a completely different living species.  They have no supernatural origins or abilities, although they can shift into a winged, furred shape this is a natural occurrence, rather than magic.   This in itself isn’t so original but the very alieness of these vampires makes them quite different from other fictional vampires. 

These vampires are not alien, they evolved on Earth along side humans, but they don’t think like humans and don’t act like humans. Somehow this makes them seem less human and more other.  Perhaps the vampire mythology was too good because whilst I loved the vampire mythology, it did make the relationship between Max and Linnet seem a little strange. 

Max is a completely alien being to Linnet and it is hard to really believe that their relationship could bridge the huge cultural and physical differences between them.  Although, as most of the romantic conflict was provided by their differences it wouldn’t have been much of a story without them!

Embracing Darkness is an engaging read that I think most romance fans would enjoy but most of all I think it showcases the author’s clear love and vast knowledge of the vampire genre.

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