Customer Reviews

Daughter Of The Flames (Silhouette Bombshell)

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The dreams seem so real that she wakes up in a sweat and frightened. Twenty-six years old Isabella DeMarco fears the nightmares of being chased by werewolves and vampires that have haunted her six times a year since her mother died ten years ago from an undiagnosed illness. However, what has recently changed and scared her much more because she cannot rationalize a tie to her late mom's death is hearing voices inside her head talking while she is wide awake.

Jean-Marc des Ombres introduces himself to Isabella by providing her with an explanation that she initially skeptically rejects but soon reluctantly accepts. She now knows she is adopted and that her biological mother has just died in New Orleans. It is Izzy's turn to take over as the matriarchal head of her family that has fought evil supernatural beings on another plane since Joan was burned at the stake.

DAUGHTER OF THE FLAMES is an incredible romantic fantasy in which the characterizations are so real the audience will quickly believe in a protector, vampires, werewolves and other ilk as well as a realm in which magic is a form of physics. The story line is fast-paced and action-packed, but it is the cast especially the heroine now the keeper of the flame who turns this into a must read superb thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I found this to be a fairly fun and interesting read. The main character Izzy is the daughter of a cop, has a brother that's going to be a priest,-(I think, they are Catholic and I don't know anything about that)- and works as a civilian in the evidence cage at the Police Dept. She's moving along living life, working on starting a relationship with a guy, and is suddenly plunged into the world of the "Gifted" and supernatural complete with Vampires and Werewolves. She finds out that she was adopted and has no real connection with the mother and father that she grew up with. The next thing she knows she's in the middle of a battle between three magical families and she's supposed to be the head of one of them, the one that's supposed to be the "Good Guys". She ends up in the swamps around New Orleans running for her life fighting Vampires and Voodoo, and has a pack of Werewolves for friends and body guards.

I found a lot of the book repetitious and a lot of it was of the running battles in the swamps. It took almost the first half of the book for the story to progress out of New York and get moving with the story line. It's not that the story just slowly plods along, because it is filled out with a lot of action. If it was a movie it would have a ton of special effects and cool stunt scenes in it. But sometimes too much action can detract from a story almost as much as not enough action to it. It has its romance too. Poor Izzy was just starting to fall in love, she thinks, when her world gets turned upside down. Then she has conflicting emotions about the other main character, Jean-Marc de Devereaux, who is a powerful "Gifted" and is the one responsible for dragging Izzy into the world of the gifted.

If your interested in and like stories about the supernatural, people gifted with magic powers, battles of good vs evil and those sort of things, and of course the steamy sex, then you will most likely like this book, and the next two books in the set. I'll give you a heads up here and let you know that its not worth the money or the waist of time to get the fourth book. Its very very short and has nothing to do with the first three books of the "set".

I agree this is an action packed novel and has a very likable heroine. It does make me wonder what happens next. However, I became conflicted about this book by the middle of the read. It kept my attention but the actions and responses of the heroine didn't mesh (for me) with the actions and responses a woman would have if she has grown up as a cop's daughter and wants to be a cop, too. She works for the police force when the book opens and has taken enough training to almost be ready to apply to be a cop. I don't think she would fall apart so much if she had that kind of training or keep denying what's right in front of her face. I believe with Izzy's training, she'd research more and ask questions of people, including her father, even if the answers might be scary or make her upset. I also understood that she began to see her powers (when she acknowledged them) as a weapon but refused training in how to handle them yet didn't hesitate long to cut loose with them when she felt she or someone else was in danger. Weapons training is a very important part of being a cop, I think, including the attitude that innocent people can get hurt of you use a weapon you aren't trained in.

She acted careless with a man's feelings - a man she sometimes seems very close to and is developing a relationship with - so her maturity in handling relationships wasn't a positive thing for me. I did like that man and would like to see her delve deeper into the relationship. It was really hard to tell by the end of the book who she wanted or if she wanted a relationship at all. Is she ruled by lust or love? Or by other powers of seduction?

I liked her concern for others, when she was in protective mode. The book ended with a deluge of action, to which Izzy responded.

I'd like to know more about her brother, too, and hope there will be more about him in the subsequent books.

I believe I could have suspended my disbelief and enjoyed this more if she wasn't part of the police force or if her character acted more in keeping with her training.