I Burn for You [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the first book in a new series by Susan Sizemore. It has a different premise from her Laws of the Blood series, but it is equally good. It is set in and around a company that specializes in providing bodyguards to the rich and famous, the heroine is the granddaughter of the company founder and boss.

The hero is a red-blooded type who is (surprise) a vampire the heroine is not, to say more than that would be a plot spoiler, so I won't. However if you have read any of the author's other works you will enjoy this, it has a completely different take on the vampire mythos and is seriously entertaining.

This book reads as if it is meant to be a stand alone story, it seems to be complete in and of itself, it does however definitely leave the reader wanting more but that is true of any of this writer's stories that I have read. So read and enjoy.

I've been reading Vampire novels for some time now, J R Ward, Sherryln Kenyon to name but two. Both have written two of the best vampire series I've ever read, so I was realy looking forward to The Prime series. I always buy the complete set before I start the first book (I'm a quick reader and prefer to read one book after another), I am so sorry I did.

I'm going to make this review quick. The plot, or lack of one, was so slow I nearly put the book back on the shelf. I didn't as I kept hoping things would heat up and as I'd bought the series, I wanted to get the background to what I thought would hopefully be a great series. All I can say is I honestly struggled through the whole book. I didn't find either Alec the vampire or Domini the mortal remotely interesting and definately not sensual in any way.

As I mentioned, I've bought the complete series. I started the second book 'I thirst for you', and have read to page 57. No more, I need a book I can get my teeth into and one I can't put down. Unfortunately, book two is as slow and badly written as the first so I'm not going to torture myself any further.

Save yourself some money if you're thinking of buying this book. Read The Dark Hunter , Black Dagger Brotherhood or Immortals after Dark as these series have brilliant plots which keep you on the edge of your seat and the Vampires are to die for.

I keep all books I read but these are taking up valuable space on my bookshelves, so I'll be dropping them to my local charity shop on Monday.

This is the first of three vampire romances from Susan Sizemore which have been bundled together in one volume, "Crave The Night", although they are also available separately.

"I Burn For You" is the story of Domini Lancer, a woman who works for her grandfather's company which is a security/bodyguarding service. Domini's parents are both dead and she and her grandfather have a close and sparky relationship.

The story begins with Domini having a strange dream or premonition. We learn that she sometimes gets these and they tend to be true - she has some psychic powers which she tries to ignore. Domini's compulsion is to walk to the local market to buy some peaches - when she arrives there she sees a strange man and sees a voice in her head. She's a little spooked and rushes back off to work.

Alexander Reynard is the man she saw across the marketplace - except that he's not a man, he's a vampire. Vampires are able to live in daylight and avoid their problems with garlic and silver if they take the right series of drugs. Alec is discovering that his drugs aren't working entirely properly for him, but he suddenly bumps into Domini and realises instantly that she's his bondmate - the woman he is destined to partner. It's a bad time with him because of his health problems - the imbalance in the drugs can cause him to become a feral vampire and out of control.

Alec is a former Delta Forces operative and is hired by Domini's grandfather for bodyguard detail. Of course as soon as he walks into the building and meets Domini his problems escalate. Domini's friend Holly, a singing star, has had death threats and both Domini and Alec are detailed to protect her. It takes a little while before they realise that the death threats are actually a little closer to home, and that there are secrets in Domini's family history which can be dangerous.

The beginning of this book was pretty good - I found the explanation of the bodyguarding detail interesting. However it pretty soon degenerated into a love-fest with descriptions of Alec as Mr Dishy and übermale and various psychic/telepathic thoughts of sex between them. Domini seems pretty dense not to realise he's a vampire and he seems pretty dense not to explain things to her earlier - although this would have been disadvantageous to the plot. There's a thin line trod between masculine eagerness and violence towards Domini and I'm not sure the line was in the right place - somehow I didn't find him a very engaging hero; it was all about his looks and body and his actual personality seemed a bit one-dimensional. Equally I couldn't see what was so great about Domini - she seemed to spend a lot of her time getting angry with him, apart from the time she was in bed with him.

The book moves towards a crescendo ending which was actually rather a damp squib. There is some interesting world-building in that there are different kinds of vampires and Alec's actually the member of a group who serve mortals and try to keep them safe, but it wasn't enough to redeem a rather thin plot. Overall I found the book disappointing.