Nei miei sogni

Killdaren #2

by Jennifer St. Giles, Diana Georgiacodis (Translator)

Ad Andromeda basta toccare una persona per leggerne i pensieri, ed è a causa di questo scomodo dono che per anni ha vissuto sola. Il matrimonio della sorella Cassie le dà l'opportunità di uscire dall'isolamento. Ma il risultato è tanto straziante quanto è selvaggio il desiderio che le suscita lord Alexander Killdaren, visconte di Blackmoor e gemello del cognato, l'unico uomo la cui mente le è preclusa. Sul nome dei Killdaren gravano poi un terribile sospetto e una maledizione, cosicché Andromeda dovrà riuscire a far luce sulla verità se vorrà assicurare la felicità alla sorella. E trovare nell'oscura passione di Alex la speranza di un futuro d'amore anche per se stessa…

Genres: Romance, Historical, Gothic, Historical Romance, Paranormal, Fiction

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 5, 2006

About the author

USA Today Bestselling Author Jennifer St. Giles writes under the names Jennifer Saints and JL Saint. She writes sexy southern suspense, paranormal romance, military romantic suspense, gothic historical and paranormal crime,

She writes romance because she believes that when you take a human being to the very core of his existence, then you will find that what matters more than anything else is to be loved and to give love.

Life is all about choices and to pull from one of Erich Fromm's quote, She chooses to create and to love rather than destroy and to hate. Go forth, dream, believe, create, inspire, and love,

Jenni (J.L. Saint, Jennifer St. Giles, Jennifer Saints)

PS. Writers don't develop split personalities. They develop pseudonyms

Reviews

[Alisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5-4 Stars.

[michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy. Poorly written, dull plot, and why oh why did I keep reading?! Probably because the excerpt of book three was what started me on this series and I still hold hope that book three will at least be passable. While book one at least kept the redeeming quality of feeling like a Gothic novel throughout the whole story, I can't say the same for this book. It honestly felt like unedited fan fic that got slapped into the book. Constant grammatical and punctuation errors did not help in that regard. And I honestly had to stop taking notes of everything that was wrong about this book or I would never have finished.

But here is the list before I stopped: Unnecessary repetition of facts. The summary of book one (to make sure the reader was up to speed) was messy. Multiple mistakes (grammatical, punctation). Read like a bad fan fic. Overly dramatic making the characters seems childish. Emotions were all over the place with unrealistic and drastic highs and lows. Waaaay too many adjectives. all. the. dang. time. Poor and stilted conversation. Main female lead had the same woes as book one's main female lead (no man will ever marry me because I have this gift/curse). Basically nothing was developed.

And that's just a skim of what I strongly disliked about the book. Save yourself. Save your eyes. Save your time. Am I going to heed my own advice? No. I'm still going to try to read book three. I just have to know if it's going to redeem itself or be just as bad. But after that book I will never read something by this author again. And I will never, ever reread this series or recommend them to anyone.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I blame myself for not liking this book more. I thought the best thing about the first book was that classic Gothic isolation and unknown that followed the heroine everywhere. We were on an adventure together, neither one of us knew what was going to happen. Maybe the hero was a vampire, maybe he was the killer, maybe she was going to be killed. She couldn't trust anyone. By comparison, we all knew what was going to happen to the heroine in this book, and she felt like she had all of the answers on the first day.

The book itself was well written, but I really missed those strong Gothic elements from the first book.

[Wendy Tavenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful second book!! Both brothers still believing the Dragons Cruse. Cassie, Andrie and Gemini trying to find a way to break it and find the murderer all at the same time!! A wonderful suspenseful read with the murderers finally being rutted out!!

[Debra Lally · Rating 4 out of 5]

A steamy read

The first book in this series was good, no steam till the last few chapters. This book, the second in This series was very steamy in just about every chapter. The storyline was good which is the only reason I finished. I will not continue with this series.

[Wilson Delgado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passion and adventure

This book was even better than the first! I will be starting book 3 next! I highly recommend the series

[Brenda Conner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suspense...

Was intriguing. Looking forward to the next book and adventures that are on the horizon. Real page Turner. Hard to put down and keeps you wanting more.

[Tina Billings · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a slow start but otherwise pretty good

[Paranormal Romance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living under the Killdaren brothers roof, the heroine and her sister devise a plan to put an end to this so called curse once and for all. It's silly to believe these two brothers are destined to kill one another no matter what the family history says. Despite old pain and feelings of betrayal, the love one another and it's up to the heroine and her sister to show them this.

When she comes up with the plan to infiltrate the hero's home, she is thinking about a few things. Yes, she wants to do her part to free this family of all the pain and suffering they bare under the curse, but she also realizes that soon enough she will no longer be welcome in her sisters home once the truth of the heroine's powers are revealed. So she must find a manner in which to support herself and as she in quite skill with organizing and cataloguing artifacts, she decides to ask the hero for employment doing just that to his collection. She is also very much aware of her personal and intense longing for this torture man whom everyone seems to forget about when they discuss the Killdaren curse. Yes the brother is crippled but it's the hero who suffers. He is without that sense of family, living along in his cold and barren home. He lives under the crippling weight of guilt because it was he who is responsible for his brothers condition. The hero sees this pain. She is taken with the man who shoulders so much guilt and pain and is determined to see his burdens removed and for happiness to return to his life. She knows that he can't offer her marriage and she knows she couldn't accept the offer even if it was given. No man wants a witch for wife and she couldn't stand to see that distrust in his eyes where before there was only passion. Their affair is secret but intense and he shows her a world of passion and pleasure while she can bring a smile to hansom face. But despite their brief happiness, the light is not to last as the darkness begins to filter in. An old mystery previous believed to have been solved is reopened upon the death of another woman. The blame and suspicion quickly switch to the hero but the hero is determined to prove his innocence. No matter what, he is not the man people think he is. He is a dark and secluded man yes, but he is kind and tender to his horses and to her. Only she sees this side to him and it's made her fall in love with him. No, he will be happy, even if it's without her.

This is the 3rd time I've read this book and while I can say it's a go to enjoyable read it is not perfect. I rather loved the continuation of the previous mystery thought solved and these new sets of characters were very much in line with the first book. The hero is dark and misunderstood. Tortured by the curse but sweet at heart. The heroine is willful and insistent in her part of the investigation and at times, I grow frustrated with her stubbornness. In fact, this book could almost be a copy of the first in overall plotline but this book was lacking that intense dark mystery the first book had. The heroine was a bit less 'willful' than her sister but she still made hasty decisions and questionable judgement calls. She and the hero did have a marvelous couple of sex scenes and over all I found her to be a healthy mix of naughty and innocent- not the typically society miss with the way she allowed the hero to seduce her. I would have liked to see more into the hero's mind as- because the heroine couldn't read his thoughts, he was a complex character with struggles and painful memories. This was okay and I can't say I wouldn't count on reading it again in a pinch but it was lacking that sense of LOVE I had with the first book. Neither the less, great paranormal historical romance with angsty characters, murder mystery and tortured heros.

[Marilyn Rondeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those anxiously awaiting the sequel to St. Giles fabulous MIDNIGHT SECRETS are in for a rare treat and will not be disappointed with DARKEST DREAMS as it continues to delve deeper into the mystery surrounding the cursed Killdaren twins.

Andromeda “Andrie” Andrews has come to Dartmoor’s End to visit her sister Cassie who is now married to the mysterious Sean Killdaren. Unfortunately, she is utterly attracted to Sean’s estranged identical twin Lord Alexander Killdaren, Viscount Blackmoor. These twins are living under a centuries old curse that Killdaren twins always end up killing one another and the brothers have not borne one another’s company for the last eight years. Cassie and Andromeda are determined to break the curse.

Andrie, whose gift of reading another’s thoughts is bound and determined to help Cassie by reading Alex’s mind to discover any thoughts he had of fratricide. What Andromeda uncovers in Alex’s wicked mind has nothing to do with murder but more with ravishment and she is slightly piqued while at the same time thrilled that the object of his ravishment is her. In the meantime, someone is ritualistically murdering women around Dragon’s Cove and making it look like Alex being the culprit. The closer Andrie gets to uncovering the truth puts her in danger of being the next victim.

St. Giles puts forth a superb non-stop action thriller in this very colorful, sensual story with appealing dark and dangerous gothic overtones. Her character development for both Alex and Andromeda is tremendous making them both intriguing and extremely likeable. Alex for all his dark and dangerous attributes was made all the more human with a very disarming sense of humor and his special gift of song in which he used to quiet both terrified animals and humans alike. In the same respect, her treatment of the angst that Andromeda faced in dealing with the gift/curse of mind reading when in contact with the evil side of mankind was powerfully portrayed with instances of the horror of such a gift as well as the fun side when sensually private thoughts were divulged. Readers will be delighted with the pairing off of Alex and Andromeda, seeing them both sensually charged and totally hot together. Additionally, you are certain to be thoroughly enticed by the nibbles the author gives of a preview teaser setting the stage for the third ‘gifted’ Andrews sister Gemini. Bottom line – this was a super entry to a series I highly recommend and suggest you put this author on your watch and ‘auto buy’ lists.

Marilyn Rondeau, for www.ck2skwipsandkritiques.com

[Sabrina (Soter) Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Una parola ci libera da tutto il peso e il dolore della vita. Quella parola è amore."

Devo dire che rispetto al precedente questo secondo volume si è rivelato leggermente migliore, ad eccezione (purtroppo) della storia d'amore, sempre deludente ç__ç Infatti pur non essendo l'ultimo della serie (manca ancora la storia della sorellina Gemini) in questo libro si chiudono molti interrogativi rimasti aperti, e ci sono anche dei bei colpi di scena! Tutto ciò che avevamo scoperto o creduto di sapere sugli omicidi del primo libro si rivela essere una menzogna (evviva l'arte del riciclaggio XD) perché in realtà l'assassino è ancora a piede libero e più agguerrito che mai. Come se non bastasse tra i due neo-sposini Sean e Cassie tira aria di tempesta, a causa anche della famosa Maledizione del Drago che grava sui gemelli impedendogli di essere felici. Andromeda decide così di prendere due piccioni con una fava e cercare lavoro in casa di Alex, in modo da aiutare la sorella a riappacificare i fratelli...e godersi il bel lord XD La storia d'amore tra i due non mi ha molto convinto, la passione non manca ma oltre questa non ho visto altro...i due passano quasi tutto il tempo a rotolarsi provando le varie posizioni del Kamasutra e basta, l'amore non so dove sia XD Ho compreso bene i timori di Andromeda di essere emarginata e di non poter vivere una storia d'amore per via del suo tocco (dono molto più forte e concreto di quello di Cassie...e anche Gemini tirerà finalmente fuori la sua "dote", forse la più interessante tra le sorelle! ;D) però non ho condiviso molte delle sue scelte, sopratutto in campo amoroso, manca solo che si faceva trovare nuda nel letto di Alex XD (che in effetti ispira più del fratello...se non altro è più presente XD) Altri personaggi comunque coronano il loro sogno d'amore e finalmente viene sviscerato ben bene il rapporto tra i due fratelli e in un faccia a faccia commovente l'affetto tra i due trionfa, dopo anni di separazione ç__ç Il finale è un po' affrettato e uno dei cattivi risulta misteriosamente sparito (scommetto che rispunterà nel prossimo XD) ma ora non ci resta che aspettare l'ultima storia, quella di Gemini, sperando in una chiusura in bellezza!

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book in the Killdaren Trilogy, which focuses on the story of Andromeda Andrews and Alex Killdaren.

Andromeda, like her sister Cassie, thinks the Dragon Curse which keeps the Killdaren brothers apart is nothing but a legend, so she decides to seek employment in Alex´s castle to see if she can find a way to bring the brothers together. While cataloguing the many Killdaren antiques, she becomes more and more attracted to the bitter lord of the manor, but their relationship has to be put on hold because new discoveries threaten the safety of the ones they hold dear – Mary´s true murderer is still on the loose and not the man they put in prison!

I really enjoyed the first book in the series, but I have to confess this book was a bit disappointing. While, in the first book, the mystery plays an important role in the plot, keeping you guessing, here we have an overdose of romance, with the mystery coming in second place. To be honest, I think the author would have done a better job if she had added an extra 100 pages to the first book to tie all the loose knots, for if you squeeze the “real juice” from “Darkest Dreams”, you don´t get much. The Killdaren brothers’ long awaited reconciliation was also very poor. After 8 years apart, with heaps of anger in between, you would think the coming together would have had a little more “drama” in it. It seems like the author did not know how to deal with the situation and just took the easy way out.

Not everything is bad; there are still some good suspense moments - the visit to the Kennedy mansion, for example. But, I have to say I was expecting much more.

[Alta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one too, and I'm excited to read Gemini's story next. This was a leisurly read as well, but maybe a bit quicker than the first though. I loved the resolution of part of the story line and found a great appreciation for Andromeda.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a second novel in a series, there were some places where summarizing the previous book was necessary to inform or remind readers what had happened before, but it was tedious. Still a good adventure and mystery.

[Leslie Dicken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this one. Fabulous story and carry over of the plot from the previous book in the series. I read the book in two days.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read on a random choice and it wasn't too bad, although it was a sequel that heavily referenced the book before. It did have a lot of nice gothic touches.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this series!

[Donna Knox · Rating 3 out of 5]

not long enough