Night Fires [Kindle Edition]

Karen Harbaugh (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Simone de la Fer paid a high price for youthful indiscretion. Forced into a vampire's world of darkness, she uses the powers of her curse to help victims of the French Revolution. British spy Michael Corday lives a dark life of his own, though one forged from childhood scars. The two join forces to complete their respective missions, never dreaming each would be the other's salvation. This story would be noteworthy enough for its female vampire, a rarity in the romance world, but Harbaugh paints a poignant portrait of all forms of faith lost and reclaimed, and of redemption, against a richly detailed canvas of the chaos of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century France. The only disappointment is that there is no evidence that Harbaugh plans to further elaborate on the concept and culture of vampirism set forth in this book in the near future, although one can always hope. Nina Davis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

Enter a midnight world of dark seduction and unquenchable desire, of sinful pleasure and breathtaking intrigue—where amid the flames of war and the immortal thirst of two irresistible lovers, an alliance is born that would burn forever....

NIGHT FIRES

Beautiful and damned, Simone de la Fer roamed the French nights as a vampire. A reluctant immortal, she thought she’d never again taste the bittersweet pleasures of mortal love—until she met an enigmatic human spy she found impossible to resist. Haunted by his own violent past, Michael Corday arrived from England on a secret mission. On a starlit highway he found his life changed forever by a creature of the night unlike any he’d ever encountered. Unable to deny their destiny, they traveled together through the
Parisian underworld on a dangerously erotic journey to right a terrible wrong—even as they were stalked by a merciless hunter intent on destroying them. For theirs was a passion so taboo, it had been forbidden by human and vampire alike; so sinful, it could only be paradise. And they would risk eternal damnation to taste it just once again...


From the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 489 KB
• Print Length: 384 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0553584189
• Publisher: Dell (December 2, 2003)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FBJDV6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514,632 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More Like a Flicker Than a Blaze, June 15, 2004

By 

L. J Lewis "Miss Amii" (Collierville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Night Fires (Mass Market Paperback)

I completely agree with the reviewer that said there is absolutely no reason to make Simone a vampire. The only purpose it serves is to turn this character into an unpleasant, humorless walking pity party. Night Fires would have worked better as a straigh forward historical for all the impact the vampire gimmick made on the story.
As others have said, this takes place during the choas and terror of the French Revolution. Simone returns to her family estate to find the family that turned their backs on her murdered. She slays the killers, and then runs off to church to beg forgiveness. The priest instructs her to dedicate her life to help other flee from the agents of the revolution. Hence, Simone becomes La Flamme, a Scarlet Pimpernel minus the brains clone, dedicated to rescuing imprisoned aristocrats. At the same time, the English government sends over a spy named ..er... I'm drawing a blank... let me check... (I just finished the book an hour ago) yes... Micheal Corday to seek out and assasinate the one financing a revolutionary movement in England.
As a historical spy romance, the book is also a dud. Simone is again the problem. For someone who risks danger at every turn, she sure is stupid and ineffective as a spy. I can't see why a seasoned expert like Corday is so adament that he must enlist the help of La Flamme when he isn't sure can trust a third party and Simone is more of a help than a hinderance. In fact, if Corday just went to Paris without her, the book would have been finished in a third of the time and we'd all be spared Simone's endless self-flagellation. She's cursed, she's evil, she's wicked, she must suffer, she must wear a hairsuit, and she must give us every detail of her pain and agony because we must suffer along with her.
But honestly, in particularly silly scene Simone is vowing to herself not to sleep with Corday and reveal her true name and other information. Not three pages later, Simone has succomed to his charms and answers every one of his questions, spilling all her secrets as they do it! A few pages later, the government spy keeping an eye on them mentions how inept women are at keeping secrets. I laughed. I sure hope the author meant for the irony to be there. There is also a another part were Corday wants Simone to pretend to be his wife, but she can't because lying is bad and marriage is scacred or some other nonsense. She nearly gives them both away in front of hostile French agents! Simone, even though her life's misson is to decieve and ellude the revolution's agents, isn't even flexiable enough to act outside the Moral Code of Virtuous Romance Historical Womyn That Make Them Pure and Likeable to Ye Puritanical Readers to save her own life!
In the end, they finally make it to Paris and do what they need to and everything is hunky dory even though the plot elements just come together out of Serendipity rather than actual spy work. Corday and Simone live happily ever after. The End.
This book is readable but not much else. A more complex story, lack of vampire gimmick, tigher pacing, and characters not determined to wallow in misery would have improved this spy novel. It's head over heels better than all those idiotic vampire comedies that have been flooding the market in the last few months, but that's a back-handed compliment.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, December 31, 2003

By 

Wm19 (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Night Fires (Mass Market Paperback)

This was a great book. Usually I don't read books about French Revolutionary times, but I liked Karen Harbaugh's previous Regency romances, and this plot turned out to be engaging and cool. Unlike other vampire books, in this novel, the heroine is the vampire, and vampirism isn't glorified the way it is in other books. Instead, becoming human again is something possible and sought for. If you only want to read about sexy/scary immortal male vampires, then this isn't the book for you. If you want to read about a strong woman who made a mistake when she was young and now uses her vampiric powers to save people from the Revolution and how her good deeds allow her to win back her humanity, find true love, and live happily ever after, then this is the book for you. The heroine is smart, determined and has a nifty disguise. The hero is more than a match for the vampiress and as an assassin, he's very cool under pressure. They had great chemistry. The plot was very realistic, in the way they interacted, travelled, etc., and author's description of that period. What I enjoyed the most was the surprise twist in the ending involving the children. I highly recommend this. I don't read historical romance anymore, but this book is definitely a keeper. I will buy the sequel as soon as it comes out.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sensual, May 22, 2008

By 

BellaDonna "Moon Gazer" (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Night Fires (Mass Market Paperback)

I am almost finished reading this book and don't want it to end. Ms. Harbaugh draws you in to her world like the trademark trance of the vampire. Her descriptions are vivid, and Corday is as sensual as they come. Both characters are flawed, Simone is a Vampire and Corday an assasin, both deal in death. Together they find comfort. There is humor and lust, along with raw emotions.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this book, and admire the author's writing style.