DARK HUNGER

Author: Sara Reinke ISBN: 9781420100549 9/2008 PARANORMAL Publisher: KENSINGTON/ZEBRA

Tessa Noble-Davenant will do anything to protect her brother, Brandon, even if that means traveling across the country with Rene Morin. A cynical, brooding, yet startling sexy vampire, Rene seems to take pleasure in finding fault with Tessa's every move. Despite this, a sensual attraction begins to develop between the two, one to which neither can afford to succumb. Rene and Tessa are being followed—and a single misstep will put them at the mercy of forces more dark and powerful than they can even imagine...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Sara Reinke sets her paranormal romance, DARK HUNTER (Second in The Brethren series), on a road trip from Louisiana to Lake Tahoe, California, where Tessa Noble and her twin brother Brandon are running from the Kentucky compound that is not only a thoroughbred racehorse breeding facility and bourbon distillery, but ancestral home to several clans of vampires who immigrated from France two centuries ago. Tessa and her unborn baby are under the protection of wealthy, former New Orleans cop and half-human vampire Rene Morin, while Brandon is traveling with his fiancé and Rene's former partner, Lina Jones. They're headed to Tahoe where they believe they can hide from The Brethren, but will they make it in time or will Tessa's polygamous husband find them out first?

Reinke creates a whole new paradigm for vampires who are not relegated to the night, can eat garlic on their pizza and have no problems with mirrors. They also have the ability to communicate telepathically and heal quickly, especially if they feed on fresh human blood. Tessa, unfortunately (having never been off the family farm), is not well versed in how to feed discretely and leaves nasty corpses in her wake. She's also not very fond of the morose, often drunk Rene, who under normal circumstances for him would have let his body heal itself after a criminal shot his knee cap, but Lina didn't know that bit of info about her partner and hauled him off to the ER where the doctors ended up amputating his lower leg. He feels like only half a man physically, and has pushed people away ever since he discovered his vampire abilities bequeathed by his deadbeat father who abandoned him as a baby. He and Tessa love to hate each other until they begin hating to love each other, which leads to the real deal and he starts letting her into his inner life. I love how sweet their love life becomes with Tessa's ability to accept Rene for who and what he is.

The only difficulty I had with DARK HUNTER were the frequent trips down memory lane. The transitions from present to narratives of family history seemed jarring and became a little tedious to me, since they only seemed to delay the action.

Despite all of the flashbacks and the violent/gory bits that I had to read through the hands I had covering my eyes, the story of DARK HUNTER is well told. I enjoyed the interactions between the characters, and the insights into both the lives of amputee Rene and of deaf-mute Brandon, were helpful. I realize there will be more to this story in a following book or books, but I was disappointed with Rene's actions at the end and assume that Tessa will be equally distraught at the turn of events. Vampire fans will enjoy this sexy, action-filled tale and the bedroom romps and hungry stares will get even the non-vampires blood heated up.

Susan Barton