Review: Cold Night's Kiss by Tracey O'Hara

Night's Cold Kiss by Tracey O'Hara

The tension between the Aeternus, an ancient vampiric people, and humanity has been mounting for over a century. But when rogue vampires begin to drain humans in order to achieve an illegal blood-high, all bets are off.


After the death of her parents, Antoinette Petrescu devoted her life to becoming one of the top Venators, the elite hunters who destroy the rogue Necrodreniacs. Her kill count is legendary and her skills superb.

But now the serial killer who killed her parents has returned. And to stop him Antoinette must join forces not only with the Aeternus, but also their most legendary killer. One that is both dangerously attractive, and involved in buried secrets of her past. More dangerous still, a dark attraction grows between them--one that could doom both races.

Since witnessing the murder of her mother, Antoinette Petrescu has burned with fiery hatred for the vampire race—even for Christian Laroque, the noble, dangerously handsome Aeternus who rescued her. Now an elite Venator, Antoinette must reluctantly accept Christian's help to achieve her vengeance—even as he plots to use the beautiful, unsuspecting warrior as bait to draw out the bloodthirsty dreniacs.

Thoughts:

This is another title were the vampires are aliens, as a twist it also includes the shifter races. In the case of this read, the reader is given more information and it ends up being one of the better concepts for vampires are aliens. The world and history that has shaped earth by living with these creatures really clicks and O'hara gives good details on past events. Giving the reader the foot holds in the history so that you can understand the politics that are occurring. The law enforcement divisions that were created because of the different species is put together well. They work nice together, but still end up segregated. Of course there's always those crazy worshiping groupies and then the vampire haters. After all a book where the vampires are out of the coffin, will never be complete with out them. There are also other nice touches to how society is shaped around vampires, like human donors and other treats along the way.

Antoinette is a character that is so kick ass, that she reminds me of a very early Anita Blake. Antoinette is hard headed and hates vampires. She's never been able to find the difference between a rouge vampire and a “tame” vampire. Thankfully this annoying self righteous phase, is soon past and she evolves above prejudices. Some of the finest character growth happens in this book. Just love it when a character grows with the events that are shaping the book. Of course, she wouldn't be any kind of decent vampire hunter with out her mad fighting skills, and when in trouble can come up with a plan fast. Making for very nice action scenes.

Sadly Antoinette jumps into the sack a little to fast with our dashing hero Christian. Where's the suspense? I love it when I get to the point were the character is feeling the love. I absolutely hate it when the author uses some form of magic for the two love interests to jump into bed together, and then one of them—or both—ends up loathing that event. Then we spend a huge amount of time with the character getting over how that jerk tricked them into bed. This ploy is getting old.

A downer to this book is that the plot was average, it felt like a typical Urban Fantasy story line. I could see all of the major plot twist about 50 pages into the book. (Only that far in because one of the secret evil villains needed to grace the pages.) Still, even though you could see the big plot twists coming, O'hara managed to make them exciting. Bravo. Saddly, I still ending up putting this book down for a month 50 pages from the end. Right in the middle of the climax.

At certain points in this book I was wondering to myself, is this turning into a PNR. Don't get me wrong, I love PNR. Some of my favorite authors write the stuff. How ever an experienced UF fan and PNR fan knows the difference. When the book states it's UF on the spine, that's what you expected. When a reader is wondering if their book is changing genres, it tends to take away from the build up. Well, at least for me.

“It's just sex, right?” is thrown around a lot in this book. If you keep asking yourself that it might not be. Honestly I couldn't feel the characters falling in love. The ending concludes that they do, but it feels like it will be another book—or two—before that kind of feeling can emerge. In fact, when the whole dramatic I-love-you scene happened, I was trying to locate the jump from “It's just sex, right?” to I'll die for you love.

You know how you fall in love with that fantastic side character? A character that doesn't make too many appearances, but ends up being the one you're reading for. Well I found that character, sadly my suspicions were right and the poor bastard got axed. I hate that, it didn't even add to the suspense or grief factor I just felt betrayed. Another petty compliant on my part. Why create such a great character just to kill them? Why? At least I could console my self with some other fun side characters. Namely a hot bear shifter,who isn't afraid to be nude, and is all leather and Harley. Hmm-mmm!

Some small little things that I liked about this book that just tickled me:
-Loved the chapter headers. They never gave anything away, but were great teasers.
Chapter 9 - Arena of Heros and Fools
-Great one liners. Sharp tongues to go with some sharp characters.

Bottom Line:

Sadly I haven't heard much about this book. In fact, I've only seen it twice. Once on an Amazon post were I discovered it, and again on someone's wish list a while back. Though I believe this book suffers from being to generic to the genre of Urban Fantasy, it has a lot of potential. Compared to some of the bad reads in the genre, this is the bomb. More importantly, if your looking for the best of what Anita Blake had to offer, I'd have to say this is the closet I've seen to getting what I miss most about dear Blake. Though, I need to give credit to Antoinette, because she is not just a Blake mold, she really stands on her own. Plus, the ladies will love our male hotty, Christain. The writing is solid, the wit is sharp enough to bring many good times a head. (Have to be honest I wanted to give it a 4, but the fact that I was able to put it down for a whole month and it didn't bother me was too much.)

Sexual Content:

Some graphic sex scenes a head.

3/5- Good, I liked it.