Customer Reviews

Deeper Than the Night

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Deeper than the night was the first book I ever read by Amanda Ashley, and I have been hooked ever since. While some of the other readers may have been disappointed I found her story refreshing to say the least. I will however admit that it was a bit misleading at first but once I started to get the real background I had to know the rest. A warning to those who have read other Ashley books. This book is not like anything else she has written so don't go in expecting to find a typical vampire story because you will come out of it feeling cheated. Instead get into it expecting to read something original and different to anything else she has out there.

Gail Crawford sneaks off in the middle of the night to pay a visit to Moulton Bay's most reclusive resident, Alexander Claybourne. She, and several other local children, believe that Claybourne is really a vampire in hiding. Gail hopes that Alexander will use his dark magic on her sister Kara, who has been injured in a car accident, to save her life. Alexander explains to the girl that he is not a vampire and turns her away. But he cannot stop thinking about the injured woman and visits her in the hospital. While there he succombs to the urge to give her some of his blood. Claybourne may not be a vampire, but he acts like one and is not human. I enjoyed this paranormal romance, despite it having a ludicrous suspense plot. Not great, but it held me in its spell until the end, which is all I ask from a book.

Like many others who have reviewed this book, I am quite a fan of vampire romances. I started reading them when Linda Lael Miller came out with her Vampire series. I've read a few here and there since, and when I stumbled upon Amanda Ashley's "Deeper Than the Night," I thought I had another tasty treat.

Wrong. What's with "leading the reader along into making her think the hero's a vampire?" Look at the cover, for instance. There's the hero, looking tortured, wearing a cape. Now, I know that many heroes wear capes in many types of romance sub-genres, but on the cover of a novel being touted as a vampire story, it's automatically assumed the tortured-looking soul on the cover is the vampire in question.

I don't like being fooled into thinking the hero is one thing and then finding out 3/4 way through the book he's something altogether different. The spine thing was also a bit creepy for me, and didn't help with the otherworldly atmosphere the author was obviously heading toward. The scene at the cabin was dark and mysterious, but the creepy feeling came over me when his otherwordly side was slowly being revealed. I think it was at this point I was incredulous to what I was reading, and like a bad train wreck, I couldn't help but not finish the book. My books look brand new when I finish them, and there was no reason for me to keep the book, so off to the bookstore I marched to trade it in for something a little less devious.

If this story was going to be a sci-fi romance, then why didn't Amanda Ashley just come right out and say so? Instead, she had to disguise the sci-fi story with the vampire cover-up. It has been quite a while since I've read any of her other books, and each time I see one that remotely resembles "Deeper Than the Night," I steer clear. How do I know she's not doing the same exact thing with her other Vampire books? I don't like being fooled into thinking the book is supposed to be a genre I'm interested in, only to find it's not.

Alexander Claybourne lives alone in an isolated house in a small town. No-one sees him during the day. He doesn't socialise, and no-one knows anything about him. There are rumours that he is a vampire. One day, an eight-year-old girl, Gail Crawford, comes to him and asks him to save her sister, in a coma in hospital following a road accident. Since he's a vampire, as she believes, then if he gives her some of his blood she will live.

Is Alexander a vampire? Does his blood have mysterious qualities? He doesn't actually know what his blood will do to Kara, but feels compelled to help her all the same. And once he has done so, he feels drawn to her and unable to stay away. He visits her, and they talk on several occasions - and fall in love.

But when Kara gets out of hospital and is sent for further blood tests, Alexander realises that by giving her his blood he might have saved her life, but he has caused problems not only for Kara, but also for herself. They have to go on the run, in fear of their lives. And Alexander has to tell Kara the truth about himself - will she still want him?

Yes, he's not a vampire: he's an alien, as many other reviewers have pointed out. (Oh, and this happens not very far into the book; certainly not close to the end, as other reviewers claim). Umm... so what? That made no difference to me. My two-star rating isn't because Alexander isn't a vampire; it's because of the quality of the book. Making him an alien was definitely different, and in a better book it would have made for a very interesting storyline. As it is, Ashley's alien is, as Kara herself says, something of a cross between Superman and the Highlander (not a lot of originality in characterisation, really), though he doesn't seem to possess much of Superman's morality. This alien is predisposed to violence, and a lot of it.

Why didn't I like this book? Well, the weak, whiny characters were a major part of it. Take Kara: she kept changing her mind about whether or not she trusted and loved Alexander. And when he told her that he was an alien, she actually ran away and threatened to turn him in to the doctor she knew would cage him like a labrat and would drain his blood for financial gain. Is being from another planet such a dreadful thing that Alexander deserved to be treated worse than an animal?

Then there's Alexander: throughout the book, one minute he is telling Kara that he loves her and will never let her go, and the next he is telling her to leave him, to go away, that they can't be together. They even undergo a marriage ceremony according to the rites of his planet, and he explains that in his culture the custom is marriage for life: a soul-bond. And then the next day he tells her that she has to leave him and start a new life without him?! Make up your mind, man!!

Then there's the thriller/danger plot. For me, that went on too long, was too brutal and really wasn't interesting. I'm interested in the romance, not extraneous elements. If you want a love story, this isn't really for you. If you like thrills and danger and struggles to escape, then maybe it is. This plot simply occupied far too much of the book for my liking.

Ashley has simply never written anything else as good as Embrace The Night, and on recent evidence she's not going to.

I have recently stumbled across the vampire genre. I noticed Amanda Ashley's books in the store and I bought this one. What a mistake! I have probably read over 10,000 books in my life and I buy over 1,000 books a year, but I always manage to finish the book. I couldn't finish the book. The problem with this book was that the characters met a number of times at night in the hospital, but there was no real development between them. However, they fell in love right away. So unbelievable. They needed to converse more or there should be more details expressing their feelings. The plot is horrible. Who wants to read a book about a vampire that is not really a vampire, but something out of this world. I was so disappointed because I felt that the characters fell in love too fast and the dialogue was tacky. I have read other books by this author that are better, but not by much. So, take my advice, stay away from this book. If you want to read a good romance novel concerning vampires, read Christine Feehan's Dark Prince, Gold, etc. series. Her novels are detailed and you can understand the torment the characters go through and why they fall in love. I hope this review helped.

This was my first attempt to reading Amanda Ashley. When I first bought it I was thinking vampire novel but as it turns out its nothing like I expected. The book pulls you in from the start and holds you there to the very end. Its a page turner and a really great romance. The love shared between the two main characters is breathtaking...ooooh to have a man like that. Anyway, read this book you won't be disappointed.

Awful...Just Awful. I'm all for a little magic and surprises are always good, but this was just plain stupid. I was really ticked off! The book looked alright, had potential, could have been alright...then BAM! JUST KIDDING! VAMPIRES ROMANCE? NO NO, WE REALLY MEANT SPACE ALIENS! What on Earth (no pun intended), I honestly had to back track and re-read a little way to make sure that I actually read it correctly! I forced myself to finish the book because I just knew that the man had to be lying, attempting to cover up his vampirism or something...ANYTHING!!! Anything else would have been okay. Very unrealistic, not only the plot, but the time it took them to fall in love, and well lets just say most of the book. My sincere appologies to Amanda Ashley, I'm sure she does great work, but seriously, Deeper Than the Night, was really lame.

I loved the book, I read more than 5x. I actaullay cried when Kara first left him. If only men would have feeling's like that...deep profound love, for one woman only.

AMANDA ASHLEY really CAPTURED MY HEART

oh my goodness! i was soo disappointed with this novel.. like the other readers, I sincerely thought I was getting a vampire romance.. but lo and behold, it was actually an alien, sci-fi thing! i, again like the other readers, had to re-read and re-read the lines when Alex actually tells Kara he is an alien and NOT a vampire. they way they fall in love was too fast and a little annoying, even I wouldn't have minded that.. but all the alien and "experiments" really put a damper on this romance. i read Ashley's "Midnight Embrace," a TRUE and fairly recent VAMPIRE romance and was very pleased with it. The only excuse I can give for this poor novel is that it was published in 1996.. but still.. anyway, I also thought that Alex, though cute and charming, was a little too sensitive and insecure.. each time it was like does she love me? why? i wish he would stop pitying himself, also Kara was no better.. how could she trust a stranger so readily and easily? the book was frustrating to finish just because it was soo tackily written.. then only thing that kept me going was seeing Kara get pregnant.. i wish Ashley wrote more about her pregnancy and the birthing experience.. but no.. anyway, if you TRULY like sci-fi and a lot of melodrama.. here's a novel for you!

I dove into this one thinking it a typical vampire romance. Not! In fact, without giving too much of the plot away, this is a vampire romance without the vampire. But we think it a vampire story until the huge surprise (near the end but not so near the end that the surprise cannot be delved into more deeply.) Even though this book turned out to be not what I thought it was, I was not at all dismayed. In fact, I enjoyed it more because of the twist than I would have had it merely "followed the formula."

Alexander Claybourne tries to save Kara Crawford from her comatose condition (the result of an auto accident) by injecting some of his own blood into her IV. She awakens within hours and, in fact, recovers so completely and so quickly, that a certain doctor becomes suspicious and begins running tests on her and finds something extremely curious about her blood makeup. The doctor then abducts Kara in order to make money by selling her blood to dying people. It is up to Alexander to save her, since it is his fault this has happened.

This book had a great plot for a romance novel and was sexy in the extreme. Add the medical drama and the sci-fi bit and this turned into quite an action-packed thriller. If you love romances, you will love this book. If you enjoy medical thrillers, this is for you. If you like science fiction, you need to read it! This was one truly enjoyable read.