Erica Orloff, Blood Son

Blood Son

Erica Orloff

Silhouette Nocturne, Jan 2007, $5.25

ISBN: 0373617555

Elizabeth and David are much closer to one another than most twins are because they suffered from the same trauma of losing their father to suicide. When David emails his sister from Prague that he is in trouble, she drops everything to rush over there. In the Czech Republic she learns her brother was staying at the isolated Hawthorn Inn in the Karkonosze Mountains. When she arrives at the inn, the owners, Ann and Zoltan warn her that vampires come out at night to kill.

Staying at a cottage on the grounds is Josef, a dhampire whose vampiric father killed his human mother. She sees him kill wolves with Hawthorn tipped arrows and is horrified to see them transform into vampires. She explains to Josef that she searches for her brother David, but believes the vampires have him and are keeping him alive. She bases her feelings on visions; Josef agrees to help her rescue David because he loves her, but knows he will have to kill his sire, chief of the vampire clan.

Erica Orloff has written an exciting and bitingly delicious vampire romantic thriller in which the protagonists fall in love despite the danger they face that might mean there is no tomorrow for them. Josef, a dhampire suffering from an arthritic like condition, is a Byronic hero who expects to die fighting vampires. Elizabeth loves him, but also admires his courage as he refuses to succumb to the lure of the dark. There is plenty of neck biting action as well in this bloody good supernatural tale.