Desire After Dark [Mass Market Paperback]

Amanda Ashley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2006

Vicki Cavendish knows she should be careful. After all, there's a killer loose in town - one who drains women of blood, women with red hair and green eyes just like her. She knows she should tell police about the dark, gorgeous man who comes into the diner every night, the one who makes her feel a longing she's never felt before. The last thing she should do is invite the beautiful stranger into her house...Cursed to an eternity of darkness, Antonio Battista has wandered the earth, satisfying his hunger with countless women, letting none find a place in his heart. But, Victoria Cavendish is different. Finally, he has found a woman to love, a woman who accepts him for what he is - a woman who wants him as much as he wants her...which is why he should leave. But, Antonio is a vampire, not a saint. What is his, he'll fight to keep and protect. And, Victoria Cavendish needs protecting...from the remorseless enemy who would make her his prey...and from Antonio's own uncontrollable hunger...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This contemporary vampire romance may lack the violence, intensity and eroticism typical of the subgenre, but bestseller Ashley (After Sundown) still delivers an exciting plot and a heroine who can kick ass with the best of them. A killer is draining green-eyed redheads of their blood in the Midwestern town of Pear Blossom Creek, and 22-year-old Victoria Cavendish knows she should be leery of mysterious men like Antonio Battista, who orders food he never eats at the diner where she waitresses, then disappears into thin air. In fact, Antonio is a 600-year-old vampire. While an obsessive, yellow-eyed vampire stalks Vicki and a vampire hunter remains convinced Antonio's the killer, the innocent smalltown girl and Antonio fall in love. Even if they can survive the danger, what will happen to their love? A ghost living in Antonio's isolated Spanish castle provides additional paranormal flair, and a secondary romance between the vampire hunter ready to retire his stake and Vicki's best friend round out the story. (Feb.)
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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Zebra (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821776835
• ISBN-13: 978-0821776834
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad... really bad... wow... just bad, March 26, 2006

By 

Christine Olinger "Chrissy" (Marshfield, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desire After Dark (Mass Market Paperback)

I was asked to review this and got pretty psyched, since Amanda Ashley has been recommended to me often.

Wow. I hope this was just one bad book. Otherwise there is no hope for the reading public. THIS WAS AWFUL.

It began with repeated phrases (three and four times in the same number of paragraphs). The overall stench just worsened with every predictable and trite description. What's worse-- the trite descriptions were of southern rural life rather than midwestern, as were the bad snippets of dialogue.

Did anyone bother to edit this? Our female protagonist puts a pot of coffee on the stove, gets her newspaper, comes back and pours a cup? Either she found the worlds fastest antique percolator or lives in a 150 room mansion and the walk was REALLY long. And... pink beehives?

Ugh. Trite. Pedantic. Rote. Horrible.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Boring, July 31, 2006

By 

SoCal Reader (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desire After Dark (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read Amanda Ashley in the past, and don't remember any of her books being this boring or frustrating.

First, the heroine is TSL (too stupid to live). For example, Vicki comes across info that casts suspicion on Antonio as a serial killer. At this point, she's done nothing more than serve him coffee. They have no relationship. He does not enthrall her with his vampire powers. They are strangers. Does she immediately go to the police? No, she lets him WALK HER HOME. Not only that, she's so scared there's a serial killer on the loose, she INVITES this stranger into her home while she goes upstairs to "look around." Yes, that was just one of many instances where I had to do a doubletake while reading.

Second, there's repetitive "non action." The evil villain appears at Vicki's home, Vicki screams, Antonio or vampire hunter Tom (whose secondary story is awfully forced) give chase, the villain gets away. Wash, rinse, repeat. At some point you wonder, "Is this going anywhere?"

Which brings me to the third problem: our hero, Antonio is pretty much useless. And the way the villain is finally brought down---well, let's just say after 300+ pages of non action, I expected it to take more than ONE page to defeat the villain.

Finally, there is very little romance, sensuality or sexuality in this book. With about 60 pages to go I actually stopped and thought, "Wait a minute, are these 2 even TOGETHER?" Seriously. It struck me all of a sudden that they had yet to really express any deep feelings for each other, physically or emotionally. The romance did pick up a bit with about 20 pages to go but by that time, I was just ready to finish the book and be done with it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars good but not the best, March 9, 2006

By 

boricuachica "boricuachica" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desire After Dark (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the second book of Ms. Ashley's I have read, and once again I was disappointed. It was a good story, had a promising plotline, but it fell flat on several levels. For one, I agree with the reviewer that called this particular story rather "country", and that really bothered me more than I thought it was going to as it threw the story a bit off. Secondly, the heroine of the story was underdeveloped in certain areas and overdeveloped in others; more importantly, she was downright annoying, especially with her excessive cleaning. Thirdly, while the confounding positions the author seems to enjoy putting her characters in were sometimes the right moves to make, more often than not they seemed to done for the wrong reasons or involved elements of a juxtaposition that just didn't make any sense, leading to results and consequences that were a bit of a stretch for what had previously transpired. Overall, I just wasn't impressed with the finished product.

so would I recommend this book? Eh. I'll leave that up to you to decide.