Talk About My Favorite Authors: The Darkness & the Night: Blood & Coffee

I loved reading Lisa Lane's erotic romance Lust in Space so I when Lisa contacted me so that I could review her The Darkness & the Night series, which is dark horror erotic romance. I read the blurbs she has on her website and really thought I should give these novels a try because they sounded very intriguing. The protaganist of the series, Karen, is a young woman fresh out of grad school, with just one stop left to make before beginning of the rest of her life. Agreeing to meet her family at the old summer home one last time in the hopes of finding some sort of closure to the estrangement between her and her paranoid and delusional father. Karen then suddenly finds herself alone in the large house, in the middle of nowhere, after her family calls to report a travel delay. Now Karen begins to question her own sanity when she falls victim to a vampire attack that night, which reminds her the similar circumstances behind her father’s psychotic break in which his delusions, however, he was the vampire hunter.

The vampire, Billy, returns and informs Karen that his family is using her to settle a score against her father, for killing one of their family members several years ago. Their plan is to present Karen, who is newly turned, to her recently “psychologically rehabilitated” father, and then see which one survives in the end. Karen manages to escape them in one piece, only to embark upon a dark, virtual odyssey. That begins while hitchhiking across the California coast, she searches for what is left of her humanity as well as starting her search for the vampire that turned her, now set on settling a score of her own. During her journey, she finds herself taking refuge in a battered women's shelter, then she is kidnapped by amateur demon hunters, as well as joining a surreal nocturnal commune with her new love vamp Billy and then being confronted with the ethical dilemma of carrying the unborn child of a true monster.

I had a good time reading this novel because it was different from many of the novels that I usually read. I both liked and disliked Karen because even though she is a strong female character there are times that I really thought she could have done things differently if she wanted to. This also goes the same for Billy the vampire who turns Karen because seems like a nice loving guy but then he shows his true colors as a psyhco. There were some very steamy sex scenes between Karen and Billy that I really enjoyed because they have this attraction to one another even though at first Karen hates Billy for turning her. I also felt kind of creeped out when I read some the scary suspense scenes throughout the novel and I should expect that since it is a dark horror erotic novel with vampires. I enjoyed reading the novel though sometimes I wondered who was good and who was evil throughout the novel because sometimes Karen seemed like she was headed towards being evil while somtimes Billy was headed towards actually being good. Towards the end of the novel I was really looking forward to reading the next The Darkness & the Night series to find out what else is in store for Karen and Billy after the way this novel ended. I give this book 3.5 Open Books:

Here is the description of the book from Lisa's website and picture: THE DARKNESS & THE NIGHT: BLOOD & COFFEE by Lisa Lane $ 4.99 (Book 1)(225 Pages)

Karen is a young woman fresh out of grad school, with just one stop left to make before beginning of the rest of her life. Agreeing to meet her family at the old summer home one last time, hoping to find some sort of closure to the estrangement between her and her paranoid and delusional father, Karen suddenly finds herself alone in the large house, in the middle of nowhere, after her family calls to report a travel delay. Karen begins to question her own sanity when she falls victim to a vampire attack that night, recalling the similar circumstances behind her father’s psychotic break: in his delusions, however, he was the vampire hunter. The vampire returns and informs Karen that his family is using her to settle a score against her father, for killing one of their family members several years ago. The plan: present Karen, newly turned, to her recently “psychologically rehabilitated” father, and then see which one survives. Karen manages to escape in one piece, only to embark upon a dark, virtual odyssey. Hitchhiking across the California coast, she searches for what is left of her humanity while she searches for the vampire that turned her, now set on settling a score of her own. During her journey, she finds herself taking refuge in a battered women's shelter, kidnapped by amateur demon hunters, joining a surreal nocturnal commune, and being confronted with the ethical dilemma of carrying the unborn child of a true monster....