Two dangerous men hungering for love... Two brand-new romances in one special volume.
***"TWILIGHT VOWS" by Maggie Shayne
Rachel Sullivan had hoped to learn his secrets but found herself at the mercy of mysterious vampire Donovan O'Roark. Now her sexy captor was about to discover her own desire: to give up her innocence to the man she'd always loved.
***"MARRIED BY DAWN" by Marilyn Tracy
Gavin Deveroux had twelve hours to save Tara Michaels -- twelve hours to marry her. But would their midnight marriage vows keep the rogue vampire and his beautiful bride together eternally?
I live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
This is a book with two great stories. The first by is supurb as alway with another instalment in her wings in he night series. Dononan is a great. A vampire tortured by his past and afraid to love again. And yet he still finds love but is afraid to trust it at first. Mrs Shayne is great at makimg charaters you love and pull for.
Book 6 in "Wings in the Night" vampire series. Original novel. See my review in "Two by Twilight" which contains 2 books in this series- in which this one was re-issued and the other one "Run From Twilight" (Book 10) published.
Twilight Vows is the story that introduced me to Maggie Shayne and her Wings in the Night series. I totally admit that I was originally drawn to the book by its beautiful cover, and I quickly became captivated with the world Maggie Shayne created. I found her concept of a link between vampirism and the belladonna antigen to be intriguing and unique, and I adored the character of Donovan. Twilight Vows will forever hold a special place in my heart (and on my bookshelf)!
I actually only read Maggie Shayne's story, Twilight Vows which was part of this book. This story could actually be a stand alone book. Shayne introduces some totally new characters. DPI is not in this book, but her version of the vampire world is the same i.e. the Chosen contain a genetic anomaly that enables them to be turned. It was a fun, fast-paced quick read. (There is mention of Dante, the vampire who stars in the next book.)