In the second Roaring Twenties novel, newspaper reporter Gwen Murphy is investigating the mysterious death of three men at the New York City docks. A strange man saves her from nearly drowning and takes her home with him. She thinks he’s a vagrant since he’s a little dirty and living at the waterfront in an abandoned warehouse, but he’s different from most homeless men she’s met.
Former mob enforcer Dorian Black survived the gunfight in the previous book and has been living in self-imposed isolation for a few months. He’s severed all ties with the vampires in the city and suffers from bouts of uncontrollable madness for a few days of each month. After he saves Gwen, he tries to push her away, fearing he could hurt her, but she’s tenacious in wanting to help him.
I absolutely loved this story.
Gwen and Dorian have a strong connection despite their blood bond. She’s strong-willed, open-minded, and giving to a fault. She works in a male-dominated profession and is determined to be seen as an equal, and she goes about it with sophistication and intelligence.
Dorian is protective over his few loved ones, but he’s wracked with guilt. He’d blindly followed and obeyed Raoul, his patron and the vampire who’d converted him, for decades and each act of violence chipped away at his soul. Gwen shouldered his pain and hopelessness, and gave him something to fight for.
Their friendship bloomed quickly. Though they desired one another, neither really acted on it. I mean, the first and only sex scene is in the Epilogue, but waiting for this union made sense because he needed to work through his problems first and they needed the extra time to really understand one another. Despite the lack of actual sex scenes, there was a lot of sexual tension and I could really feel their growing love and acceptance for one another.
There weren’t as many secondary characters/side plots in this story as there were in the previous book, which made this story tighter and faster paced. Vampires, not werewolves and human gangs, were the primary focus.
One thing I just don’t understand after reading the first two books of this trilogy is why vampires need permission from older, more powerful vampires to create new vampires, called protégés. I understand too many vampires in one area would alert the humans and cause problems, but why must vampires earn the privilege to create protégés when it’s a natural need for them to procreate?
Anyway, I really enjoyed this story.
4.5 Stars
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On the hunt for the story left behind when her father died, the heroine finds herself saved by ruffians by a very tortured and somber soul. Down on his luck and living in a warehouse by the waterfront, the heroine can see painful memories in those gray eyes of his and feels an instant connection to the stranger. He is quiet, reserved but very intelligent and speaks in a way that shows he’s well educated. Though he tells her to leave him alone, to void any debt she may imagine she owes him- she’s stubbornly refuses to abandon him. Half of her intentions are honorable- she does feel indebted to the tormented man who’s saved her life but she’s still a reporter and when she figures he knows about the murders she’s investigating, she won’t stop until she gets the story. But as time goes on and she gets to know him a little, bit by bit, she can say that she’s becoming very attached to the hero. Once an enforcer for the vampire mob the hero had a sudden change of heart regarding his profession and now lives in self imposed exile slowly starving himself and wishing for death. With the death of his maker at his own hands, the bond between them has severed the hero’s sanity and he has times of blackouts and vicious violence. This is why he urged the human woman away from him but can’t understand why she refuses to see him as he truly is- a monster. She does everything in his power to save him from himself. When she finds out he was an assassin, she’s degusted but refuses to see any evil in him. This faith in a man undeserving of such mercy brings out a will to see her safe at any cost. When he thinks she’s been murdered, he returns to his old life as an assassin in order to kill the man he thinks responsible. When he discovers she’s alive and her knowledge of his kind had made her a mark, he risks her affections to change her in a bid to save her life. Though he has good intentions everything back fires and he loses her love and they must go on the run. The heroine could forgive him almost anything but the fact that he’s taking away her life essentially puts a thick wall between them. Also, the bond of maker and protégée has made his periods of blackouts worse. She finds herself unable to hate him despite all he’s done and knows she must fight hard to save herself and to save the man who’s slowly losing his mind. I thought this was a very heavy book but delicious in its drama and focus on the torment of these two characters. I loved the heroine because she was tenacious but really loyal and despite the hero being the kind of man whom makes it easy to dismiss. I loved the hero because he wasn’t a love sick dog but he truly did love the heroine and it shows in his actions rather than his words. I also liked the fact that though they did have some sexual contact during the book, they don’t actually sleep together until the epilogue. This allows for the reader to become more invested in their emotions rather than making it all physical. Awesome book and a delight to read but not a lovey dovey romance. So if you’re expecting gushing proclamations of love you won’t get it. ( )