Customer Reviews

DEEP MIDNIGHT ($3.99 ED)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

If you're ever planning to spend Carnival in Venice, "Deep Midnight" would be a good book to take with you. You'll soon be seeing vampires along every canal, dressed in very weird costumes and masks. The heroine of this novel has three costume changes, including an outfit in fire-engine red vinyl that is an irresistible lure for the undead. Jordan thought she had buried her past when she left South Carolina but there is a mysterious masked dottore who seems to show up whenever she wanders alone on the streets of Venice, after midnight (this happens often).

Another mysterious stranger, who is disguised as a wolf rescues Jordan from a masked ball where the other guests turn into demons and devour each other. He disappears, mask still firmly in place, but the next day she is introduced to a tall, blonde stranger who seems to remind her of someone.

Meanwhile Jordan's cousin, Jared slinks off to the contessa whose ball was ruined by Jordan's hysterics (no one believes her story about the demon-guests). One might even say that Jared tries to suck up to the contessa, but really it happens the other way around.

Jordan, who makes her living as a book reviewer (yay!) flies to New Orleans to interview an author who seems to know a great deal about vampires.

If "Deep Midnight" sound a lot like warmed-over Rice (Anne, that is), well that's what it is, except the sex isn't nearly as imaginative. There is even a long, rather dull history of how the tall, blonde stranger and the partying contessa got turned into nosferati, way back during the Age of Vikings.

The main thing I'd like to find out is how Jordan got paid for her book reviews.

However, if you decide you could really go for a Viking vampire, read this book. The Venetian background is mildly interesting, although I'll never understand why vampires who are allergic to seawater would choose to live in a city that is sinking into the Adriatic. (This peculiarity does lead to an unintentionally hysterical scene where Jordan sloshes a bucket of canal water over her blood-sucking pursuers.)

NOTE: Also try typing 'nosferati' into your search engine. Most references are in German, but I did find an essay that starts out: "Thus are born the universe's first true quantum-mechanical living-dead..." Yo. Some people out there are really serious about vampires.

I love paranormal romances, but this one seemed a little far fetched. There is no great love between the two characters and doesn't seem to be a whole lot of passion between them. I feel as though the reader gets left in the dark in this book. I normally will read a book within a day and it has taken me 3 days to complete this one.

As an avid Shannon Drake fan I was somewhat dissappointed in certain aspects of Deep Midnight. Drake's artful description of Venice and Carnivale is breathtaking and she successfully creates a paranormal storyline, but if you are looking for the passionate and almost obsessive love affairs of the first two books in this series then I am afraid that you will be very dissappointed. Jordan and Ragnor are not shown to be anything near to soul-mates and love doesn't even come into it. In fact, it seems like their relationship has even yet to start. Another dissappointment is the sex scenes. In the past Drake has used her skill to take our breath away, it is not so in this case. So, overall, the storyline was good but was never bulit upon and you are left wondering if they will even end up together or if they will break up next week.

American book critic Jordan Riley visits her cousin Jared and his wife Cindy in Venice during Carnevale. On Fat Tuesday, the trio attends a masquerade party. After dancing with a "wolf", Jordan wanders into a blood bath in which her wolf rescues her from human looking beasts with fangs.

The police refuse to investigate, scoffing at Jordan's account as that of a foolish inebriated American tourist. The next morning Jared insists that it was a jest in poor taste, but Jordan rejects his explanation. Unable to let go, Jordan begins her own inquiries into her mysterious rescuer and the blood bathed orgy. Her quest places her in perilous danger yet puts her on the path for a lifetime of love.

DEEP MIDNIGHT is a strong supernatural romance that continues award winning Shannon Drake's vampire stories (see BENEATH A RED MOON and WHEN DARKNESS FALLS). The current tale engages the audience from the start, but readers of Ms. Drake's previous novels will find this one, albeit well written, to follow too closely, at least at the start, of WHEN DARKNESS FALLS. Still the story line is quite entertaining due to the relationship between Jordan (a delightfully daring damsel in distress) and the "Wolf" (a phenomenally powerful protector) leading to thrills for sub-genre fans.

Harriet Klausner

This is the first book I've read by Shannon Drake, and let me just say that it will be the last. The story is mostly set in modern Venice during Carnivale. Carnivale becomes rich and beautifully alive to the reader as Drake describes Venice in very descriptive detail. That's the one thing I actually liked about this book. The romance (if you could call it such) between Ragnor and Jordan is completely undeveloped and unlikely. They know absolutely nothing about each other, nor do they seem to care--except out of vague curiosity. The only thing between them is sexual chemistry and that is all. Jordan spends the entire book being both attracted to and repelled by Ragnor, right up to the last three pages. The heroine is stubborn to a point of downright stupidity sometimes and tends to only go off for meetings with suspicious people in the bad part of town at night. The same scenario of her following a dottore while being chased by shadows and bat wings occur at least four different times, and after a while, I just started skipping the scenes, feeling a strange sense of deja vue. The vampires are not explained at all and the plotline is relatively predictable; I knew who the "mysterious head vampire" was ever since her fiancees death described. All in all, I think Ragnor and Jordan will break up in a year or two, Jared will continue to cheat on Cindy and just for kicks, maybe Nari will come back one more time.

I loved this book. Ms. Drake made Carnivale in Venice come to life. The story line flowed and kept me in suspense the entire time. As the third book in the series she has hit a home run again.

'Deep Midnight' is not the story that 'Beneath A Bloodred Moon' and 'When Darkness Falls' are. It felt as though Ms. Drake was under some deadline and had to rush this book--it begins suspensefully enough and the first half of the book is lush in its descriptions of Venice and Carnavale. The ending is anticlimactic -- wiping out a centuries-old enemy shouldn't be that easy..... I also wished to see a little more of the "old gang."

I was quite bothered by the fact that there were proofreading errors and a chapter that just didn't fit in its place-almost as though it were an editorial blooper. These definitely distracted from the reading experience. I will not hesitate to read more of Ms. Drake's writings. This just wasn't one of her better offerings.

Interview with the Vampire this is not. Shannon Drake--or some other author of the same name--used to write interesting and even well-crafted historical romance. This is not a well-crafted anything...the "heroine" is boring and rushing headlong into "danger," which is not particularly believable even if one accepts the vampire premise. Story line is thin, plot is thin, characters aren't compelling or fascinating. Read something else.

I've read the other two books and was excited to see this one hit the shelves. Unfortuantly I was disappointed. Not only did it have little romance and was poorly wrote, but it was also horribly edited. Some parts (the areas of Ragnor's past) were out of order and confusing. In another place (when Jude, Lucian, Sean and Maggie were explaing the situation to Jorden) Lucian had left the room, but out of nowhere joins into the conversation and then a few lines down says he then returned to the room. Also, Jorden says a line that clearly did not belong to her and could only belong to one of the vampires. From reading this book, I get the feeling that it was rushed to meet the intended deadline. I for one would have been happy to wait a little longer and get a better book. Lets hope the next book isn't such a let down.

After reading the first two books in this series I was very excited about this release. This book does not have the same captivating quality of the other Shannon Drake books. The romance was seriously lacking with the hero even admitting Jordan was not necessarily his true love. Usually on the steamier side, Ms. Drake dissapoints again with only one so-so steamy scene. This felt like more of a history lesson than a romance with a twist.