Single White Vampire: Oh, to be single again…
Single White Vampire by Lynsay Sands is book one (or technically by storyline–book 3) of the Argeneau Vampires series. Here is the story with the quality I was looking for!
It seems that this is more in line with the quality of writing that I expected from the author, with a series that has a strong following. Since this was the first book of the collection published, even if it was the third book in the series timeline, it was a bang up of a start for the Argeneau Vampires.
An interesting point is that Lucern’s vampire romance novels in the book are about the very vampires/people that we will read about in the upcoming real-life books, almost like Lucern is Sands, but in a male vampire alter-ego sort of way. I thought that was a pretty cool little tidbit, and I wouldn’t have noticed it, had I not been reading this series out of order, completely unintentionally.
Lucern is the oldest of the Argeneau vampire children. He is 612 years old, but doesn’t look a day over a hunky thirty-five. If he was indeed putting himself out for a personal as the title suggests, he would have had legions of women responding to his ad. He is a distinguished author, previously writing historical texts (all autobiographical, even if that is not obvious to the public) and then venturing into novels of the most (un)likely genre: paranormal romance! Imagine that. I think perhaps Sands was doing a little tongue-in-cheek with her first character in the series. He wrote three vampire novels, intending them to be a sort of historical record (they were non-fiction to him), but his editor at the time released them as vampire romance novels, which then became insanely popular.
Fast forward ten years, and his old editor passes, and now his new editor, Kate, is trying to get him to do something for the fans, like a book signing tour. But the stern recluse Lucern is not interested, and wastes no words telling her so, with his negative one-word replies to her written requests. Seeing as how he refuses to budge and she can’t contact him any other way, she shows up at his door seemingly unannounced, except that she did write him of her arrival; he just never read the letter!
The cool thing about their chemistry is that even though you can sense Lucern waking up to her presence, literally as if his being was coming out of a deep somber hibernation, borne of decades of boredom with humanity, he wasn’t immediately trying to jump her bones. Though there is an incredibly hot scene where he accidentally invades her mind (only when in sleep mode) and induces a very wet dream on Kate because he is fantasizing about her as he is watching her sleep.
When he realizes what he has done, he runs away, but you know he wants to get it on with Kate. There is no doubt of that. He definitely cannot read or manipulate her mind at any other time, and it is explained that the Argeneau matriarch must not get wind of this information, since she strongly encourages and believes that finding a mate whose mind cannot be manipulated makes the ideal candidate for marriage, and she is a matchmaking mama!
Kate is very attracted to him, initially of his talent and his mind, and when she sees him, it is physical, but she is very focused on what her job is as his editor, and is not interested in complicating that professional relationship by getting too close. I had to admire that restraint, because it would have seemed rather cheesy, in light of the strenuous effort she was investing into getting Lucern to change his mind about a publicity tour, to have crawled into bed with him at the drop of a hat. Instead, in the few days where she had invaded his life and his home, her mere presence has quietly made a niche for itself in his lonely and long life, so much so that when she does leave to return to New York City, he is aware of the loss, and it troubles him.
I really liked them as a couple; his chivalric nature is at odds with her modern independent spirit, but it results in some really humorous juxtapositions, and even after she discovers that her Vampire Romance author was in fact writing autobiographical stories rather than fiction, she still sees his vampirism as something of a handicap. So much so that at the romance conference that he agreed to attend with her, he finds himself being hovered over by Kate and some of the other romance authors, all of whom happen to be female.
He thinks they find him sensitive and needing protection, and it ruffles his macho feathers, even if he can do nothing about it without revealing more about himself than he cares to. Their attraction, however, cannot be long denied, and when they do get together, it is pretty intense–definitely worth the buildup.
How I long that the following book was just as sexy and smart, but since I read them out of order, I know that not to be. Hopefully, this quality will manifest in the following book.
On to the next…
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