"This author can't write a bad book"

Recently turned eighteen, Heather Kinkaid was heading home with her date when she saw what seemed to be a man on the lonely mountain road. That night the first visit of her "dream-beast" occurred in her dreams. The creature came on other occasions too until her concerned parents returned with her to their year round DC home. For the next six years, Heather never returned to the family summer cabin and during that time no visitations happened.

With her mom dead from uterine cancer and her dad killed four months later in a vehicular accident that she knows was suicide, Heather struggles with her grief. However, she returns to the cabin to prepare it for sale. Almost upon arrival, she begins to see the telltale signs of her dream-beast. The next day someone tries to run her off the road, but a bird that changes into her dream-beast saves her. As she gets to know Devin, someone wants to use her as an expendable pawn to kill him. She would do anything just like he would to keep her beloved from harm, but she also wonders can a vampire and a human cross species even when love blossoms between them?

The lead couple not only makes vampires seem like a realistic humanoid species struggling to survive against the overwhelming Homo sapiens population, but also provides a relationship that is fun to follow. Though the villain once exposed seems weak, the story line is very exciting as love and danger become the norm. This terrific tale will send supernatural romance readers seeking other works by Margaret L. Carter (see DARK CHANGELING or www.amberquill.com).

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Courtesy Sime-Gen
Posted January 24, 2004

Summary

The summer when Heather was eighteen, her dream beast's nightly visits warded off loneliness and swept her away in flights of ecstasy. Now, returning to the mountains to sell her dead parents' vacation cabin, she finds her "beast" again. But he turns out to be more than a dream, and she is not the only woman who craves his kiss. Devin's first love, centuries in the past, died horribly because of her devotion to him. Does he dare to expose another mortal woman to that risk?