Carnival Tarot - Dakotah's Reading By Jory Strong Book 3 in the Carnival Tarot series. Three cards. The past. The present. The future. Death. Strength. The Emperor. Dakotah Flemming didn't believe that the tarot cards spread out in front of her held the truth. Because even though the fortune-teller's prediction of a man in her future, one unlike any other, filled her for precious seconds with longing and hope, she couldn't afford the luxury of such emotions. She was running from the past, from an enemy determined to see her dead. And as much as the wolf who shared her skin might want a mate, Dakotah didn't have any illusion that such a thing was possible. Domino Santori had no intention of taking a bride, of converting her into a kadine-a vampire's mate. Instead he envisioned a future filled with an endless string of women to satisfy his needs. But the wolf that was an integral part of him had a different idea. And its will combined with The Heat and The Hunger of his race soon had Domino wanting Dakotah as fiercely as he'd once desired his freedom.

ZAREK'S POINT OF VIEW:

Dark-Hunter: A soulless guardian who stands between mankind and those who would see mankind destroyed. Yeah, right. The only part of that Code of Honor I got was eternity and solitude.

Insanity: A condition many say I suffer from after being alone for so long. But I don't suffer from my insanity I enjoy every minute of it.

Trust: I can't trust anyone...not even myself. The only thing I trust in is my ability to do the wrong thing in any situation and to put a hurt on anyone who gets in my way.

Truth: I endured a lifetime as a Roman slave, and 900 years as an exiled Dark-Hunter. Now I'm tired of enduring. I want the truth about what happened the night I was exiled—I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Astrid (Grekk, meaning star): An exceptional woman who can see straight to the truth. Brave and strong, she is a point of light in the darkness. She touches me and I tremble. She smiles and my cold heart shatters.

Zarek: They say even the most damned man can be forgiven. I never believed that until the night Astrid opened her door to me and made this feral beast want to be human again. Made me want to love and be loved. But how can an ex-slave whose soul is owned by a Greek goddess ever dream of touching, let alone holding, a fiery star?

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For most people, summer barbecues are nothing to be afraid of. But Anita isn’t exactly plain vanilla—and neither is her love life. So it takes a special kind of courage to attend a barbecue thrown by her friend Sergeant Zerbrowski. Walking into a backyard full of cops and their families with wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel both looking gorgeous on her arm won’t be easy, even with almost-four-year-old Matthew Vespucci to break the ice…

Anita is determined to have a good time with her family, just like everyone else. But it doesn’t take long for tensions to rise among the adults and kids. And Anita will learn that gossip and innuendo can be just as dangerous as anything the undead can throw at her…

Includes a preview of Affliction, the new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel.

He'll fulfill her wildest fantasies- but only if she believes.

Leo Dunne has been searching his entire life for the one person born just for him. He finds her working in his own company, but the shy little Ruby Halloway constantly hides from him. He hatches a devilish plot with her best friend to bring her out of her shell, and the result proves her desire is more than a match for his own.

Ruby has had the hots for her boss for some time now, but she knows business and pleasure shouldn't mix. While that can't stop a girl from dreaming, she sticks by her guns and does her best never to be alone with the handsome CEO. Until the company masquerade party, where she discovers a passion with him that leaves a mark on her soul.

A family emergency calls Leo away, and rather than spend one night out of Ruby's arms, he convinces her to go with him. With his brother's life on the line, it's vital she learn how to deal with who, and what, her new lover really is--before it's too late.

A seductive beauty he can never have, yet can't resist...

Cadeon Woede will stop at nothing to atone for the one wrong that will haunt him forever. But once he secures the key to his redemption, the halfling Holly Ashwin, Cade finds that the woman he thought he could use for his own ends and then forget haunts him as much as his past.

A tormented warrior she should fear, but can't deny...

Raised as a human, Holly never knew that some frightening legends are real until she encounters a brutal demon who inexplicably guards her like a treasure. Thrust into a sensual new world of myth and power, with him as her protector, she begins to crave the demon's wicked touch.

Surrender to dark desires...

Yet just when he earns Holly's trust, will Cade be forced to betray the only woman who can sate his wildest needs -- and claim his heart?

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Everything is different underground. Just ask the residents of Harmony, a futuristic world where alien catacombs can lead you astray—and where psychic senses spark out-of-this-world passion…

Reporter Sierra McIntyre's stories on Crystal City's ghost hunters—and their mysterious guild—have earned her tabloid a bit of respect. And they've allowed her to clothe her dust bunny companion Elvis in rock-and-roll style. It helps that she has mega-rez intuition to fall back on…

Especially when she interviews Ghost Hunter Guild Boss John Fontana about the disappearances of retired, homeless hunters. She doesn't want to trust the physically and psychically powerful man, but her senses—and Elvis—give her the green light. To uncover the conspiracy within his own organization, Fontana proposes…marriage. And though it's purely a business arrangement, there is nothing pure about the attraction that sizzles between them…

Synopsis

Set in present day Caldwell, New York ‘Dark Lover’ is the first in a series of novels about the Black Dagger Brotherhood. The Black Dagger Brotherhood is an ancient order of warrior vampires who defend their race against the lessers, vampire slayers who have been recruited by the Omega (an evil supernatural being who wants all vampires destroyed.) There are six warriors in the Brotherhood and these warriors are all that stand between the civilian vampires and the extinction of the vampire species at the hands of the lessers.

In the Black Dagger novels the vampires are a separate species to humans, to be a vampire you have to have been born carrying vampire blood. At the start of their lives vampires seem like humans, they have no special strengths and can go out in daylight but they go through a dangerous transition to vampire hood in their mid twenties. Although vampires can drink the blood of humans it has little nutritional value for them and they need to drink the blood of other vampires (of the opposite sex) to survive. A human bitten or drained by a vampire doesn’t rise as a vampire – they are just dead.

The vampires are few in number due to the legions of slayers hunting them down over the centuries, high infant mortality and the rigors of the transition to vampire hood that not all vampires survive.

The story focuses on the romance between Wrath, the only pure blooded vampire left on the planet, and Beth a human/vampire half breed who is about to undergo the transition from human to vampire but isn’t aware of her vampire heritage.

There are a lot of obstacles in their path. Wrath hates humans and doesn’t want a mate. Beth finds it hard to believe in her vampire heritage and doesn’t want to need Wrath. That would make their relationship difficult enough without them being the prime target for the lessers who are hatching a new strategy for wiping the vampires off the face of the earth.

The Review

This is the first novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, a series paranormal romance books written under the pen name of J. R. Ward. It is not the author’s first novel because she has already written several romance novels under the name of Jessica Bird but I believe it is her first paranormal novel. Either way it’s a great book!

To help the reader understand the vampire words and terms there is a helpful glossary at the start of the book, which is great to fill the reader in on the background, but the book is so well written that you don’t need to keep looking things up in the glossary.

The action in the book is fast and exhilarating making the story a real page turner. The brothers like rap music, fast cars, black leather, knives, guns and martial arts and have this whole alpha male macho thing going on, yet as characters they are all intriguingly flawed and have weaknesses as well as strengths.

Dark Lover has some wonderfully erotic scenes between Wrath and Beth. Unlike some romance (and vampire) novels the sex scenes are not used to prop the story up when poor plotting means that there isn’t much else going on. In Dark Lover the erotic parts are blended seamlessly with the romance, the vampire fantasy world and the action parts of the story making it a book that will satisfy a wide female audience.

I particularly liked Dark Lover because it is the start of a new vampire romance series. It is an exciting, original and well written book. I always get excited when the first book of a new series is this good because it makes me hopefully optimistic that further books on this series will be equally good. I am intrigued to find out whether the vampires win their battle against the Omega and his lessers and how the lives of the other brothers play out. More please!