FURY'S KISS - Karen Chance
A Midnight's Daughter Novel , Book 3
Signet Eclipse
ISBN: 978-0-451-41323-9
October 2012
Paranormal Romance
Brooklyn, New York - Present Day
Waking up with little if any memory of what she'd done the night before isn't a new experience for Dorina Basarab, but waking up with no idea of who she is or where she's at is. She does know that vampires aren't to be trusted, so in spite of the fact that the handsome vamp is insisting he is her boyfriend and is trying to help her, she's not buying it. When shapeshifters break through the door and start attacking her and the vampire, Dory loses control, and for a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), that's not a good thing. SHE takes over, and it's the next morning before Dory is aware of anything again.
While Dory at least knows who she is now, her memory of the previous night is still missing, and not just the part where her dhampir took over. With her father Mircea's help, Dory mentally enters her memories. Unfortunately, while she now knows some of what happened—like how a squad of first-level vampires, including her partner for the night, Lawrence, were killed while she stayed alive—they aren't able to find out who is responsible for the ambush they walked into. As a dhampir, Dory is considered an abomination by most vampires, and since she was the only survivor, she's having a very difficult time getting Marlowe, the Senate's spymaster, to believe that she's innocent of any wrongdoing. Not knowing what they are up against is compounding the trouble they are in, and Dory, her boyfriend, master vampire Louis-Cesare, and the rest of their team will need a miracle if they hope to get through this.
The third book in the Midnight's Daughter series, FURY'S KISS has Dorina facing some of her biggest challenges yet, including taking on a servant (possibly the world's worst vampire), and dealing with an ongoing relationship. There is a hierarchy to vampire society, but as a dhampir , Dory isn't considered a part of the hierarchy. Though normal dhampirs don't usually live for a very long time, Dory is over five hundred years old, but they've been lonely years. Unable to control the dhampir in her, Dory has avoided relationships of any kind, so having a boyfriend is new to her. That he's the former “golden boy” of the European Senate and a first level vampire makes her wonder just what Louis-Cesare is doing with her. She doesn't see much of a future for them because if Louis-Cesare has any hopes of redeeming himself with the vampires, being involved with her will not help, yet he doesn't seem to care. She also has an interesting household: her roommate/friend, Clair, is a Fae Princess and a magical null, which helps to calm the dhampir ; there is a small army of Fae camping out in the backyard to protect Clair and her son, Aiden, heir to one of the Fae kingdoms; a couple of trolls live in the basement, and then there's Stinky, the creature that Dory has sort-of adopted. She's also working for Central, so she has a bit more contact with her father, Mircea, and her uncle, Radu, as well as Marlowe.
A lot of these characters were introduced in earlier books, so reading them in order may be helpful to keep the players straight as well to know some of what's been going on. Yet, this is a new threat that Dory is facing, and enough background is given that readers new to the series won't be totally lost. A captivating story with quite a few twists that will keep you on the edge of your seat, check out FURY'S KISS.
Jennifer Bishop
