Customer Reviews

Kiss Me Deadly (Silhouette Nocturne)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Plot Summary: Nikolaus Drake, the leader of a small tribe of vampires, is splattered by poisonous witch blood and barely survives. Since his heart nearly turned to ash and was regenerated, he is now considered a phoenix vampire, a walking miracle amongst his kind. He goes to the witch's house to drain her dry in revenge, when a love potion accidentally bewitches Nikolaus into thinking he's in love with his mortal enemy, Raven Crosse. Apparently Raven needed to get laid more than she needed to finish the job, and killing Nikolaus took a back burner to getting in a few orgasms first.

So ends my streak of great paranormal reads. I can only blame myself in this case. I was greedy and I downloaded this freebie e-book hoping to strike gold, and instead I got a worthless hunk of pyrite. Sometimes it is better to have no book to read, rather than suffer through a story this awkward. The writing had a strange stilted quality, almost as if I was reading a bad translation from a foreign language. As bad as I found the descriptive passages, the dialog was even worse. Nikolaus started the story as cro-magnon man, and later upgraded to a crass, clueless teenage boy.

The premise wasn't bad, as far as paranormal romances go. I rather liked the idea that witch's blood is a potent death cocktail to all vampires. But a good idea is only a skeleton upon which skillful writing adds depth and flesh. Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but I can overlook a lot of sins if the sex scenes are well done. Sometimes an author is awful at plotting and dialog, but can sizzle in the bedroom. Unfortunately, I can't dress this up in any way, shape, or form. The sex scenes in this book are rank, like foul B.O. There's no buildup, no climax, no nothing. The author skips so many steps, that she would have done better to avoid having any sex scenes at all. I don't care if this book is free, it's still a gross waste of time.

I don't read a lot of romance novels, but I've read some in the past. Since this one was free, I thought I'd try it out. Since I'm not an avid romance reader, I don't have anything recent to compare this to or know what to expect. I have to say I LOVED the characters and the story regardless of other reveiws I saw. It's a story people, purely for entertainment. Sit back and enjoy it, don't disect it and rip it apart so much. It had love, action, defiance, passion, leather. Ravin is a strong willed warrior and not a weak little damsel in distress as most romance novels seem to have. I liked her transformation from a tough chick to a big softy in love. And Nikolaus is just an adorable puppy. Then he switches gears back to being an angry vamp intent on revenge. The push and pull with these two is entertaining. So what if it's predictable, it's a colorful balance. And Himself...in my mind's eye, he cracks me up. I can see him preening in front of a mirror in Ravin's image like a kid with a new toy "Now THIS is delicious!" I read it a couple times. I'm no book critic, but I know what I like. I definitely liked the pace of the book. I'm not one for loooong drawn out conflicts based on miscommunication between the lovebirds. That's why I stopped reading most romance novels. 'I love you, but my father won't let me. Boo hoo!" fainting to the ground. No, this book was more modern, sleek, and the vampire/witch love fiasco was fantastic. I enjoyed it, as it should be. Not as a hardened critic.

The only reason I read this book all the way to the end was that it was free and I was too lazy to download anything else. I pretty much almost stopped reading after the first chapter. The idea of the story, that a vampire and witch fall for each other, was pretty intriguing. But Ms. Hauf's writing style leaves a lot to be desired. She writes as if she's a high schooler in a remedial english class. Her character descriptions are exceedingly uninspired and almost "generic" to the goth realm.
If you are looking for a vampire romance that is imaginative and much better written, may I suggest the vampire breed series (yes actually a series that you can invest in) by Lara Adrian , beginning with a free download Kiss of Midnight. The follow up books not only bring you closer to the other characters but continue the story that they are all embedded in.
** (2 stars) only for the promising storyline that sadly falls short of delivering

Somewhere in the middle really is all I can say about this book. I did find myself liking the concept of the story but felt Hauf fell short on several area's and the end result fell flat. I didn't feel the love maybe due to a love spell and even so, I still didn't feel it! The love scenes (if that is what you want to call it) was more like a hit it and hit it again and *poof* it was over.

Anyone who thinks this is the best book ever seriously needs to read more!

The second book is The Devil To Pay (Silhouette Nocturne). I have not read this one and am debating to continue with the second considering how I feel about the first.

All I can say next is thank you for the freebie!

Thank goodness this book was free. The story was completely unbelievable. I like fantasy. I like romance. I don't mind witches, werewolves and vampires. But PLEASE give me some kind of plot and character development. Two people just wandering around and screwing a bit doesn't make for a great book. It may be free, but my time is worth something!

I got Kiss Me Deadly as a Kindle freebie offer. I don't just download everything that's free, only those that seem like they will interest me. This was one, based on the description on the Amazon page, that I had been looking forward to reading. I ended up being really disappointed and I'm glad I didn't have to pay to read it. (Edit to add: I guess maybe I should have read some of the reviews before downloading!)

The story itself sounded very intriguing. I liked the whole concept of witch blood being poison to vampires and something happening so that a vampire became immune, setting up everything else. Unfortunately, the writer squandered a good story idea with poor execution.

The characters were shallow and not too far into the book I had significant difficulty maintaining any interest. The love spell idea was a tricky twist to do right, and in this instance I think it fell completely flat. There was an opportunity for a lot of humor there, but that was squandered too. In the end the book just wasn't written well enough to care about the characters or keep me interested in what was going to happen.

It's also extremely difficult to take a book seriously when the author writes such gems as:

"If his tribe ever got wind of this they'd flail him alive."

"She stirred the officious brew as it began to boil."

"It was designed to only affect the recipient, not the receiver."

The above examples also beg the question, how in heck did an editor let those things slide past? Did the book even have an editor?

If you're looking for a good read this one isn't it.

really bad. conversations with the devil who appears as johnny depp and is named "himself". poor writing creates characters you have no attachment to, making the sex scenes as boring as can be. free, yes - but i couldn't even finish it! honestly, even if i had paid for it, i would't have finished it.

Vampires know that one drop of a witch's blood touching them is fatal. Nikolaus Drake died two months ago when witch Ravin Crosse dropped her blood on him. However, he recovered and believes he is now immune to this toxin. He plans to kill the witch who almost killed him.

Ravin the vampire hunting witch owes three debts in order to free her soul. She works on a love spell to meet one of her obligations only to have Nikolaus arrive at a critical juncture. The love spell enters his soul and he finds he loves the witch. She quickly reciprocates as these natural enemies are unable to stop kissing one another.

KISS ME DEADLY is a creative paranormal romance in which Michele Hauf uses a Twilight Zone like spin to create love between the witch and the vampire. Nikolaus and Ravin are a superb pairing as he wants to avenge her killing him with her blood only to fall in love with her due to a spell. Ironically he must convince the witch he cherishes that he loves her spell or not and that they belong together taboo or not. This is a winner for sub-genre fans.

Harriet Klausner

I was never able to care for the characters. Ravin, the witch protagonist, is excessively self-involved and has had over 200 yrs. to come to terms with the death of her parents when she was ten years old, however one sentence by the vampire/phoenix, Nikolaus Drake, triggers a catharsis and she will give up revenge that has made her more of a monster than those she slays? Right! and this hangs together? Characters are flat and exaggerated.

I'm gonna skip the summary of the book and get right down to dissecting it. The author is not a good writer at all. This is High School writing, not professional by any means. The descriptions of the characters and scenery is hazy and the romance is luke warm. The one good plus to this book is she has a good idea of where the book is going. The whole Witches vs. Vampires is a refreshing change to the whole Werewolves vs. Vampires. Granted there are Werewolves, but throwing in Witches is just awesome. This book is a light-read only, and not worth paying for. I downloaded this for free, and will be deleting it from my kindle. If you are a fan of good, well-written stories, then this is the wrong book for you. Some of the best authors I have found include: J. R. Ward (Black Dagger Brotherhood), Lara Adrian (The Breed Series), Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark), Gena Showalter (Lords of the Underworld), and Sherrilyn Kenyon (The Dark Hunter Series). These authors know how to write paranormal romance!