Tracey O'Hara - Night's Cold Kiss

For centuries war raged between the humans and Aeternus vampires—until courageous efforts on both sides forged a fragile peace.
But the rogue Necrodreniacs will never be controlled—addicted as they are to the death-high . . . and bloody chaos.
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.

Comment: And this is another book, which is the first in a series, that I had in the pile for a long time. I admit I wasn't too eager to read it but if I don't push myself somehow, then I'd never get to them.

In this book we meet Antonietta Petrescu, a hunter of bad vampires. In this world, there are many types of beings, humans and vampires ans shape shifter and others. Antonietta is a hunter, part of an elite team, and she has destined her life efforts to hunt and kill the bad vampires, especially after having seen one kill her mother as a child. However, there are also the good vampires, who control their impulses and don't kill those they feed from, but to Antonietta there isn't much a difference. Her stubbornness will be proven wrong when she must join forces with Christian Laroque, one of those good vampires and his friends so that they have better odds of hunting down a vampire who has killed many human women and has proves hard to catch. But working together with Christian and being more in the world of vampires will be enough to show Antonietta not all vampires are the same?

As it often happens with books where the same ideas are used/worked with, such as the vampires in UF or PNR stories, this one was also interesting for the world building and the way the author has constructed and developed a world where there has to be cohabitation between different types of species. The fun of this is to see how close or not they can be and those old stories where vampires were just enemies are no longer that appealing on their own, so to have "good" and "bad" vampires does help in letting the story feel more interesting.

This aside, I think the story here was interesting, but not amazing as other books or series have been since I've started to read the genres. People change and now my preference in these types of books is more oriented to want worlds that are complex but where the connections between characters aren't only a matter of animosity or good vs evil. I liked it when there are family bonds and others to follow, when the characters are complex but vulnerable and when their lives are more about a fight or a battle. I got the feeling that this more domestic side of things wasn't a big deal in the idea the author planned.

Therefore, the plot revolves around the idea of good vampires and bad vampires, there's betrayals and deadly decisions to be made but all that could have been probably been better, or easier to appreciate in the big scheme of things if the characters had been a bit more developed. I know this is a first book, perhaps there will be much more in the following ones regarding this element, but the author could have done a better work. I can only suppose perhaps she was going with the trends of the time, or more general ideas but I feel this didn't win me over.

Antonietta is one of those heroines bent on a revenge mission, and of course I like she is goal oriented and driven, but what we must as her force and ambition in killing the enemy also made her a bit boring, character-wise. I kind of wanted to have interactions with friends and even her brother or other people more, so that we could believe her life was more than her work and killing vampires but that was exactly what I felt like while reading about her.

Christian is the love interest, obviously still dealing with the betrayals of the past and the labels other attribute him, especially Antonietta at first, because he is a vampire, but he is actually a much better guy than what we are told in the beginning. I imagine this is intentional so that we can "see" how he changes by falling for Antonietta, but to me it felt a bit too easy and too quick if his initial portrayal was one of a tough, careless guy. It just didn't make me like him much.

As their relationship changes, although don't be worried, they will not admit anything until a certain point anyway or because they are forced to, we must infer they are falling in love and how they are meant to be and there are even a few details about why to convince us, but for me it felt weakly done. Then, in the end, things are rushed and not clarified! Again, perhaps the next books will cement their bond and love and whatever but I don't feel like having to read other books to know.

All this along with some plot decisions I think weren't well placed nor well done, some clichés and some boring developments makes me think of this novel as having good bases and a good premise but not enough to make me feel invested. I would say this reads well, has good elements but it just doesn't seduce enough.

Grade: 5/10