So as to not make us become too tired of Raphael and Cyn, D.B. Reynolds shifts focus from the west coast to the east coast, taking us from Malibu, California to New York City. While Raphael makes his business rounds, meeting with the master of New York City, Rajmund Gregor, he brings Cyn along to meet her good friend, Professor Sarah Stratton, who came down from upstate New York to visit. All is well until Rajmund and Sarah bump into each other at their party, and their lives won’t ever be the same.
While Raj is the master of The Big Apple, the official Vampire Lord Krystof rules the entire northeast territory from Buffalo. Succumbing to the mandess that comes with age, Krystof has made his territory vulnerable, motivating Raj to consider challenging him for power. He has to bear this pressure as well as solve a mystery involving the disappearances of a string of women. Police believe vampires are involved, so to exonerate his people it’s up to him to solve it. Sarah Stratton has her own little secret as well; she has a strange psychic connection to these women. So to help save them she teams up with Raj, but both of them are in over their heads, ending up with more than they bargained for, including each other.
This book is actually very good. I wasn’t sure if I’d be interested in another couple other than Raphael and Cyn, but it really worked out quite well and Reynolds timed the change of scenery perfectly.
I liked Rajmund’s character. He’s got a younger air about him than Raphael and he’s working his way up towards becoming a Lord, so that was a little more refreshing. While Raphael is the most powerful of the North American Vampire Lords, he’s not the only one, so it’s good to explore other territories since some are evil like Jabril and Krystof, and it’s interesting to see if and how these characters meet their overtimely demise.
Sarah isn’t as physically capable as Cynthia since she’s only a professor, but she’s smart and has a checkered past of her own. There’s a lot of chemistry between these two from the beginning, but of course we never get a pay off right away with these books, and the series is better off for it. Again, I’m not the biggest PNR fan so I prefer that we don’t get it out of the gate.
As always with this series, the cover doesn’t live up to the quality of the story. Sure, there’s beefcake, but again the design is amateurish and I really have to wonder who illustrates them. This is probably the worst one so far. I can barely even read the subtitle written across his head.
The storyline is okay, but after a while once you’ve read these books back to back like I have, it becomes a bit of a pattern so I found my attention wandering here and there, but it wasn’t too significant. Though it isn’t too bad, I think I’d like to see this series branch out from mysteries about missing women, which was also the mystery for its predecessors. I would like to see more fighting because the action is well done and it keeps the adrenaline going.
All in all, these are easy and entertaining reads and the quality has remained consistent through book 3, so I’ll continue to recommend this series at this point.