Review: "Diet and attitude aside, you're also a very caring woman who has bravery in spades."
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2012
Book 1 "Blood Countess" series. No further books at the time of this review.Plot:Daemons are acomin' and the only way to save humanity is for the vampires to come into the light. The Blood Countess, "My friends call me Ellie", is forced into the spokes-vampire position by her Queen, and subjected to scientific testing by the Sexy Geek Rafe. But all is not as it seems, and in her hunt to destroy the daemons has Ellie found an unexpected ally and lover in Rafe?Comments:- Contemporary paranormal (vampires and other legendary creatures) urban fantasy with some explicit sex bits.- 1583 kindle locations, 36,600 words- Technically, this is m/f however Ellie has lived too long to be prudish - there are references and scenes of alternate carnality including f/f, exhibition and voyeurism. There is a strong erotic flavour throughout the book, but the naughty deed does not occur until right at the end due to Toxicity factors.- Written completely from the first person point of view.Opinion:One of the things I really enjoy about Langlais' writing is her intelligence. She is obviously very well-read and able to incorporate history, mythology, and contemporary pop culture in her works in a non-patronising way. In "Toxic" we get a history lesson on Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed - born in Hungary in 1560, she is seen as the most prolific female serial killer in history. Langlais has taken the historical legend and turned her into a vampire. What becomes of such a long-lived creature, and how she accepts who she now is and what she has done, is an interesting refrain through the "get Rafe into bed" and "protect my kind and those that feed us" plots.Countess Bathory is the ultimate romantic Bad Girl Does Good. She certainly isn't sweet and easy. Ellie is kicka** and arrogant and enjoys her nobility and power. She isn't easy to like. This is no light'n'fluffy Langlais story. Somewhat dark in places, brutal, hard, with a few cute one-liners and typically clever sub-character development.Plus, written from her point of view, we don't get any real depth of character for Rafe. We only learn about him as Ellie does, and really he seems, well... blah. But as the story progresses we learn there is more to Rafe than we thought and our hero becomes more heroic as Ellie fights for just a little Love."Toxic" is an unpredictable, somewhat difficult to read (since Ellie really is hard to like), intelligent, original story. As the first of the series we have much World definition, and a cliffhanger ending (argh!). Further books in the series will be required to see how Ellie's HEA and upcoming war work out. But definitely one to look for.-CR-