Title: First Drop of Crimson (Night Huntress World, #1)Author: Jeaniene Frost
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: February, 2010
Paperback: 371 pages
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Rating: 8/10
Description: From the New York Times bestselling author of the Night Huntress series comes a breathtaking new journey to the dark side of desire.
The night is not safe for mortals. Denise MacGregor knows all too well what lurks in the shadows—her best friend is half-vampire Cat Crawfield—and she has already lost more than the average human could bear. But her family's past is wrapped in secrets and shrouded in darkness—and a demon shape shifter has marked Denise as prey. Now her survival depends on an immortal who lusts for a taste of her.
He is Spade, a powerful, mysterious vampire who has walked the earth for centuries and is now duty-bound to protect this endangered, alluring human—even if it means destroying his own kind. Denise may arouse his deepest hungers, but Spade knows he must fight his urge to have her as they face the nightmare together . . .
Because once the first crimson drop falls, they will both be lost.
My Thoughts: I was very happy to see Spade getting his own story but reading this book came with some confusion. WARNING to the reader: do not read this book unless you have read the first four books in the Night Huntress series. I’ve only read the first two and experienced a lot of confusion as there are events that have already occurred when this story begins that I have not read about yet and characters that appear in this book that I haven’t met yet but are known in the story. For example, the last time I saw Denise, she was marrying Randy, but here she is hooking up with Spade. Not that I mind, but the question “what happened to Randy?” kept going through my mind. The confusion is all on me because I jumped the gun and didn’t get caught up with the Cat & Bones series first.
Overall, I really loved this story. Denise and Spade are an amazing couple and I really enjoyed learning more about Spade’s past and getting to know Denise better. When this story begins, Denise is not the vibrant, carefree, happy woman I last remember. A lot has happened to her and none of it is good. She is really just a shell of her former self. She’s existing, but definitely not living. She’s losing members of her family faster than she can comprehend and that puts her further into the pit of despair she is barely keeping herself afloat in.
And if that weren’t bad enough, she gets branded by a demon who tells her that unless she tracks down one of her ancestors who betrayed him and brings the ancestor to him, he will murder every member of her family and then he will come after her. Unfortunately, Denise doesn’t know this ancestor or anything about the deal he had with the demon. She doesn’t know where to turn so she goes to Spade. Helping a human is the last thing Spade wants to do and he makes his displeasure very well known. Going to a vampire is the last thing Denise wants to do. For her, associating with vampires has brought her nothing but misery. She has even cut Cat out of her life.
This is a very interesting partnership. Spade has been hurt because of humans and Denise has been hurt because of vampires. On the surface, it doesn’t seem possible that these two can trust each other much less be partners, but the author does an amazing job of showing the reader that underneath the outer layers is so much more that gives the reader a better understanding of these two tortured souls.
I really enjoyed following their journey to track down Denise’s ancestor while trying to avoid and outsmart the demon, who is able to track Denise’s whereabouts through her brands. Adding to the mix are the familiar characters of Cat, Bones, Ian and Mencheres, Spade’s sire. Mencheres will be getting his story in the next installment of this series, but I really hope there will be a story for Ian. His presence really lightened the atmosphere and brought great moments of comic relief. I am going to hold off reading the next installment of this series until I get caught up with Cat and Bones.
Overall, this was an awesome story filled with vampires, demons, ghosts and shape shifters as well as some really hot and passionate scenes between Denise and Spade that left my face red. Excellent fight scenes round out the story to make this one a book not to be missed.
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