This installment of Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde series features a young Diana fresh out of college and covering for her friend's occult shop in the early 70's Manhattan. At least I think that's the timeframe - she references Nixon a couple of times, so either it's pre-Watergate or it's an alternate timeline. I'll go with the former.

Diana is becoming a successful romance writer, lives in a lovely brownstone with dancers of several different genres, and helping out at her friend's store during her friend's final stages of pregnancy. Several visitors enter the store who are not among the normal customers, and one is a young Gypsy boy with the Sight.

The concurrent story involves an ex of Diana's who's in a burgeoning rock and roll band. While at a party he takes one of the proffered pills and wakes up a couple of days later with very little memory of the rest of the party evening and a deep and gnawing hunger that just won't go away.

Add in Diana's good friend Lenny from the apartment, Lenny's new boyfriend Keith, and a rather sexy vampire whom Di has no idea if he's the killer of the Gypsy boy or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you've got a pretty good cast of characters.

What made this book lose half a star was the constant inner dialogue, in italics, that gets in the way of the storyline or action or events. Just tell the story already, and let the character's actions determine their intent! Diana's right-turn into her panic attack and how Andre is able to talk her through it seemed more like the author's need to self-reveal than a vital plot point. Plus, and I realize I'm talking about a story that involves vampires and other elements of the strange and weird side of things, being 18 months out of college and already an accomplished brown belt in martial arts and already a signed, successful author does not lend itself to the "realistic" side of Diana's story.

So, it still shows, in the early 90's when it was written, a gutsy heroine who has fears and doubts and still faces them and helps those in need. And has friends among the human as well as the not-quite-human race. ( )

After being kind of disappointed with the first Diana Tregarde novel, I only read “Children of the Night” by Mercedes Lackey because I’d already purchased it. However, I’m glad I did, I enjoyed it quite a lot more.

“Children of the Night” opens with Diana living in New York City and helping her friend out by taking over her small magic shop just off 42nd Street. So this already interested me more because I live in New York City, not far from 42nd Street.

Before long Diana teams up with a real, genuine, blood sucking vampire, Andre, who has taken it upon himself to protect some people.

They have some enemies, psi-vampires who drain energy, but not blood, from people, and a mysterious creature that eats souls. The enemies have teamed up because they found it advantageous to work together.

Diana and Andre also include a couple of Diana’s friends from New York in their team, and have an unexpected ally, an old boyfriend of Diana’s in the psi-vamp team who never wanted to become and doesn’t enjoy being a psi-vampire, and just wants out of it.

This novel also covers how she helped the Romany people in New York so they are in debt to her, which was a plot point in the first Diana Tregarde novel, “Burning Water” that now obviously takes place later than this one.

I can’t figure out when it takes place. When I read the first Diana Tregarde novel, “Burning Water” I assumed it took place around the time it was written, the late 80’s. This one was written in 1990, and at first I assumed it took place around that time. But then Lackey makes passing reference to the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon being president, which would be the first half of the 1970s.

While doing some in-story research, Diana refers to Michael Moorcock’s “Elric” saga and the sword Stormbringer in a way that would indicate time has passed since Moorcock wrote about it, fitting with the story taking place around when it was written, the late 80’s or 1990…. But then there’s mention of a B-grade actor in the governor’s mansion, which would seem more like the late 60’s or early 70’s, whereas if it took place in the 80’s, I’d expect mention of this B-grade actor having ascended further, to the White House.

Overall, though, I quite enjoyed the story, and I’d recommend it. ( )

Meh. Got it as part of the fantasy bundle and just started reading. Glad I can go read something else now. ( )

Could not connect with characters and the storyline was not very compelling ( )

Diana Tregarde is a powerful person, which is a good thing, because she's being targeted by some extremely indomitable forces. Fortunately, she also has allies to assist in the fight.
I really don't want to give too much away about this book because it's so impressive how Lackey brings us in to her supernatural tale, revealing and explaining the particular mythology around Diana's powers and those of her friends and enemies. She turns popular mythology around vampires and witches on their sides and introduces additional strange and fascinating supernatural entities. I also really liked Di as a heroine, particularly considering the time period in which this was published. Diana is tough, no-nonsense, and flawed but also kind, protective and a little bit broken. I look forward to reading more about her. ( )