Review: Excellent story and audio narrator!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2014
Tess Crawford was a gently-bred lady who attended Mrs. Wiggons' school as a student and has returned as a teacher due to life circumstances. Lord Atwood returned from the war with a disorder that causes painfully blinding headaches if he's exposed to sunlight. The town has labeled him as a vampire because he's only seen at night and every midnight he visits his wife's grave. Early in the book, a storm is blowing in at night and Tess feels restless and cannot resist going for a walk as the storm approaches. Suddenly, she is on the ground, covered by a heavy male body. Lord Atwood has saved her from a falling tree branch. He then proceeds to rescue them both by taking shelter in his family's crypt while a tempest blows around them.When he escorts her back to the school, they find that the building has been severely damaged and the neighbors are all offering shelter to the students and teachers for the night. The next day, it is determined that the school needs extensive repairs and may need to close down. Lord Atwood comes to the rescue by allowing the school to move into his estate while the rebuilding takes place. Because of his condition, he sleeps during the day and must require rules to help keep the area around his room quiet. This of course leads to several contretemps since it's nearly impossible to keep three dozen teen and pre-teen girls quiet.But noise is the least of the girls offenses...several of them are convinced that Lord Atwood is a vampire and he's trying to wake his wife from the dead. Each chapter of the book begins with an excerpt from the classic, gothic novel "Wake Not The Dead" and this story has a somewhat gothic feel - along the same lines as Northanger Abbey.  As the story progresses, not only do Tess and Lord Atwell find a mutual attraction for each other, they also discover they have a mutual enemy in Lord Percer. Lord Percer wants the pieces of a treasure map that each of them have in their possession, along with pieces from several other families. This dispute with the extremely evil Lord Percer actually makes up the majority of the story, with the romance and the vampire plots meshing well and providing cohesion for the characters.I enjoyed this book and parts of it I couldn't stop listening/reading. A few parts were repetitive (Percer's evil, will Tess get turned into the magistrate?, etc...) but overall it is well written and very engaging. The narrator is good - I enjoyed his lovely accented voice, but wished he had distinguished between the characters a bit more. This is a must read for fans of Jane Charles and I think anyone who likes regency/mystery type stories will enjoy this book.** Mostly clean book with a few passionate kissing scenes.