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Sunday, March 14, 2010

Death's Mistress by Karen Chance

" Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs live very short, very violent lives. So far, Dory has managed to maintain her sanity by unleashing her anger on those demons and vampires who deserve killing.


Back home in Brooklyn after the demise of her insane uncle Dracula, Dory’s hoping her life is about to calm down. But then she gets some visitors. A friend wants Dory’s help in finding a magical Fey relic, and the gorgeous vampire, Louis-Cesare, is desperate to find his former mistress Christine.


Dory and Louis-Cesare quickly discover that the same master vampire Christine is bound to is also rumored to be in possession of the relic. But when the master vampire turns up dead, they realize that there’s more at stake than a missing mistress. Someone is killing vampire Senate members, and if Dory and Louis-Cesare can’t stop the murderer, they may be next…" - Book Cover

      Actually, the book cover description isn't very accurate. Dorina is now working for/with her father running errands, aka killing vamps and bringing in their heads as trophies. Trying to live an as-normal-as-possible life isn't easy when you are a dhampir and being best friend with a fey princess on the run may spice up things a little. Claire is back from faery and needs help retrieving a family heirloom meant to protect her son. So far so good, but the difficulty level hits the roof when the missing heirloom ends up at a secret auction where multiple vampires, member of the Senate, try to get their hands on it, and some of them are found dead.
Like Dori didn't have enough on her hands, Louis-Cesare got involved, after being MIA for over a month, because his mistress, Christine, is held prisoner by one of the greedy Senate member.

I have conflicted feeling about that book. I think the intrigue was fairly good, the entire book was action-packed and I didn't guess the real culprit until the last 30 pages or so. But I think some aspect might have needed a little more polishing. For instance, I felt like chapter 39 would have been a great deleted scene, as I found it useless, it's about 15 pages long, Dori is at the Mages Championship (some kind of race), in the whole thing brought nothing to the story.

Overall I preferred the first book over this one, I felt like even though there was a good plot, something was missing, I didn't get that little spark I'm looking for in a book. I am suspecting it's probably because we didn't see Louis-Cesare much. Maybe also because I didn't connect as much with Dori is I did in the first book. She doesn't have any rage-fits, she's not as spicy. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed.


On the plus side, we got to discover more about Dori's parents. I loved to see Mircea open up a bit and hope we discover more!
Also, the end was really good. The loop was well rounded and there is hope for a good follow-up. I am not giving up on this series, but I really hope I'll get more romance in the next book because I was romance-depraved in that one.

Read an excerpt
 
Dorina Basarab series:
Midnight's Daughter
Death's Mistress
 
Book Stats:
Paperback: 432 pages

Éditeur: Onyx (MM); Original édition (Janv. 5 2010)
Langue: English
ISBN-10: 0451412761
ISBN-13: 978-0451412768

Book Source: Provided by Penguin Canada for review

Tynga is a 32 years old mom of two, from Montreal, working as a lab technician in an hospital specialized in heart disease. In her free time, she enjoys reading all things Paranormal and photography.

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1 Person left their mark:

  1. I bought this a couple of weeks ago thinking it was the first book for some reason, so can't read it until I've read book one. It does sound good. I'm sorry you were a little disappointed in this one, but at least overall you thought it was good :)

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