"magnificent vampire romance"

Chapel used to be a courageous yet arrogant man, who feared nothing. Six centuries ago, he crashed the inner sanctuary of the Knights Templar in order to gain immortality by drinking from the Holy Grail they guarded. He penetrated their barriers, defeated their guardians, and drank from the cup. Now he knows six hundred years later that he will roam forever condemned satiating his hellish thirst drinking blood at night.

However, he has found a reason to live when his eyes feast upon brave Prudence Ryland, but she is dying from ovarian cancer. Her only hope to live rests with drinking from the same cup that has condemned Chapel to be outside anything holy. However, he offers an alternative means to eternity; his passionate kiss of death and rebirth if he dares.

This is a magnificent vampire romance with an intriguing plot twist involving Prudence's health making her choices between "unlife" and death. The story line is fast-paced as Chapel wonders whether he should condemn his beloved to a life of sorrow and regret though he admits love makes it worth while. Pru is a fabulous protagonist symbolizing much more than a strong protagonist with a dilemma; she embodies life's complexities of much of the modern biological ethics debate; this inside a paranormal romance will have readers toast Kathryn Smith for this excellent thought provoking thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 18, 2006

Summary

I am called Chapel . . .

For nearly six centuries I have roamed the night, a mortal man no longer. Would that I could undo the past -- when I entered the sanctuary of the Knights Templar to wrest from them the Holy Grail, only to discover the chalice I raised to my lips was not the sacred relic but a hellish cup of damnation. Now I shun the day and all things human, driven by an ungodly thirst. And yet...

Never have I known a maiden the like of Prudence Ryland, whose beauty and spirit awaken a heart I feared long cold and dead. But her young life is slipping away, and she also seeks the deliverance of the Grail -- unaware that the cost of her search could be her soul. I must help Prudence, for in six hundred years, no other woman has stirred my passions so. But dare I tender to my beloved that which she most desires -- the sensuous "gift" of forever that is both rapture and a curse: my immortal kiss?