Kathryn Smith, Night of the Huntress

Night of the Huntress

Kathryn Smith

Avon, February 2007, $5.99

ISBN: 0060849916

In 1899, the dishonorable man hires vampire slayer Marika "the Huntress" Korzha to capture and bring to him Bishop the vampire. Though she loathes the insulting worm, she accepts his gold commission.

Three centuries have passed since his beloved wife Elisabetta was murdered. Bishop has finally returned to the scene of her death, the Fagarus Mountains, for the first time since she died, as a favor to a friend whose brother has gone missing and probably fell victim to the Huntress. He continues his vigilance of destroying monsters, as he vowed to do so upon her death, so he plans to end the Huntress' reign of terror against his kind. However, she and her associates defeat him, but fail to kill him. Instead he is her prisoner, though he taunts her for being a Halfling. However, as her client learns she caught Bishop, he no longer needs her, so plans to have her killed using a traitor as the mechanism. Bishop saves her life. As they fall in love, they must battle their mutual enemy and somehow deal with the enigmatic Order of the Silver Palm.

As with BE MINE TONIGHT, Kathryn Smith provides vampire romance readers with a delightful paranormal historical that contains two strong adversaries learning that they must team up against a common foe; neither wanted to love the other, but that strong tie makes their partnership bond even more powerful. The story line is fast-paced, as sub-genre fans will believe that vampires, Halflings and other creatures exist, and also wonder about the Order of the Silver Palm.