Review: Romantic, hypnotic, beautifully crafted!  Five Stars!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 4, 2011
Devon Ruthin is strikingly handsome at 424 years old; of course he would be--he is a vampire.  He has spent his life in England, not far from his inherited wealth and power.  As a member of the aristocracy, Devon wanted for nothing and spent his carefree youth romancing countless women with his attractive presence and charming ways.  It was during one of these encounters with a random girl after a play that he found himself victim to a vampires.For centuries, Devon walked the night, using his extreme speed and strength to satiate his thirst for blood.  Just as he had a love for women in his years as a human, his thirst for female companionship and the sweet, red blood they provided was insatiable.  As was his station and temperament, Devon became widely revered and acknowledged as the leader of a large group of vampires.And this is how he lived until twenty years ago when an event in a barn on the edge of his estate changed his life forever.  That fateful night, he found himself standing between eight vampires lead by one who hated Devon and looked to take over his leadership and a group of five "beings" with magical powers of their own.His decision that night changed the course of not only his life but the lives of countless others setting in motion the venomous hunger for both revenge and absolution.Present day, we meet a school teacher named Bliss full of restlessness and optimism as she sets off on holiday by herself searching for adventure and romance--the kind of which she has only experienced vicariously through characters in books.Tessa Stokes writes so fluidly.  Her imagination and description pulled me completely into the story as though I was dreaming it and moving right along the stream of consciousness without realizing how many hours slipped past.  Several times I had to remind myself to stop to eat or drink, her writing is so hypnotic!  I am anxiously awaiting the release of book number two in her trilogy!  Five stars!!!