Shannon C.’s review of Twice the Night by Dawn Halliday
Contemporary paranormal romance ebook released by Samhain Publishing 7 Oct 08
This was a cute little story. The perfect bit of cotton fluff to follow an especially intense read. I didn’t find anything particularly memorable, but I wasn’t horribly offended either.
Basically, the premise is this: Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Boy’s best friend also loves girl. Girl is completely oblivious. Then, tragedy strikes and boy is bitten by a vampire causing girl to angst about vampires forever. Eventually, girl gets engaged to boy’s best friend, and that’s when boy decides he wants to be back in their lives. In a threesome.
I’ve said before that M/F/M threesomes aren’t usually my cuppa. I just prefer when the boys get to share each other, too. But this one worked pretty well for me. Mostly this was because I definitely got the sense that Cole and Duncan, our two heroes, were distinct people with their own personalities, and not merely two halves of one alpha dude. Tamara, our heroine, was still a bit too underdeveloped for my taste, but I could appreciate the issues she had with Duncan’s vampirism.
The only real thing that caused me to raise an eyebrow was the fact that the author actually mentions that Duncan’s had random women in the years he was away accepting his vampirism. I know that sort of thing is usually a necessity in vampire romance, and perhaps I’m a prude, but I wish she just hadn’t gone there at all, because then I wouldn’t have had to wonder about Duncan’s real motivations. Sex with anonymous strangers, even if it is for food, still strikes me as cheating.
Overall, though, this was a quick, pleasant story with lots of hot sexoring and a couple of likeable enough characters. I just wish the random anonymous vampire/donor sex hadn’t been mentioned at all.
Grade: C-
Summary:
Can one woman be twice beloved?After witnessing her husband’s brutal murder by a gang of vampire thugs, it took Tamara O’Leary four long years to learn to be happy again. Now she and Duncan’s best friend Cole Thompson, after working through their shared grief, are about to be married. Finally, she can eagerly look forward to the future with a man who has not only reopened her heart, but brought her out of her sexual shell.
Until one night she awakens to find Duncan gazing lovingly at her. He’s not just a beautiful dream. He’s real…and he wants her back.
Tamara still has feelings for Duncan, but she isn’t willing to give up what she’s found with Cole. Worse, she soon learns that Duncan survived that night by turning into the very thing she fears most—a vampire.
Caught between tears of joy and terror, Tamara has a choice. Retreat back behind her shell of fear—or step boldly into the arms of two men who love her.
Warning: Graphic language and some violence. Explicit sex including a vampiric threesome. A one-of-a-kind wedding featuring a committed ménage a trois.
