Title: Bound by Night
Series: MoonBound Clan Vampires Book #1
Author: Larissa Ione
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Blurb: The first installment in a sexy new paranormal romance series by Larissa Ione, author of the bestselling Demonica series!
Nicole Martin was only eight years old when she narrowly survived a massacre: her family’s vampire slaves rebelled and killed everyone in her household. Twenty years later, Nicole now dedicates herself to finding a vaccine against vampirism…and eradicating the gruesome memories that give her nightmares.
Riker, a member of the wild vampire Moon Clan, is haunted by his own demons—his wife Lorraine had been captured and enslaved by the Martin family. It was during a botched escape attempt that she was killed, along with their unborn child. Still wracked with grief and anger, Riker is now fueled solely by the desire to rescue vampire slaves…and slaughter their owners.
When Riker stumbles upon Nicole in a chance meeting, he immediately recognizes her as a member of the Martin family that once enslaved his wife—and she recognizes him as the wild vampire she saw kissing a pregnant slave in the moments before her violent death—an image that has haunted her dreams for years.
When Riker kidnaps Nicole and they spend a night together in a cave on the way back to his clan, suddenly they begin to realize that they aren’t as different from one another as they may have thought—and they’re finding themselves drawn to one another…
Thoughts: As a big fan of Larissa Ione, I had really high expectations for this book. I loved her Demonica/Lord of Deliverance series and as soon as I seen this one I knew I had to read it. For this world we are dealing with vampires in sort of an alternate version of life as we know it, where it is commonplace to have vampires as slaves. Nicole’s family is the leading company that profits off of capturing “wild” vampires, but also uses them in experiments and breeding trials hoping to create the perfect slaves. Nicole is not her family however, and she wars with herself over whether vampires are truly the evil beings that they are represented as. Riker is a bad-ass vampire that has his own story for why he despises humans – but he can’t help but be attracted to Nicole. Unfortunately, he has his clan to contend with when it comes to bringing a human into the fold. Needless to say, we have somewhat of a Romeo and Juliet situation going on here!
For me, Bound by Night was a bit like travelling along a bumpy road – you travel along a few bumps and rocky sections here or there, but every now and then you hit a few smooth sections. The prologue caught my interest right away, but the beginning and middle portion of the book was pretty rocky for me. There were lulls to the story here or there, parts that weren’t quite as interesting as the rest. In the case of characters, I had a bit of trouble liking and connecting with Riker. He seemed kind of dull at first and I didn’t really feel the pull of attraction between him and Nicole. Luckily, this did pick up further on into the book. For me, he almost seemed to become another character entirely toward the end – one that was much more dynamic. In all honesty, I liked Myne better and found him to be a much more charismatic character, so I hope to see him in his own book soon!
A good first book to a series, and a world I look forward to reading much more about. The differences between the different vampire clans, the lore of how vampires were created, and the different physiology and traits of the vampires were very interesting. I liked how Ione created this whole new world, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in future books. But it still needs some more work to be as good as her previous Demonica/Lords of Deliverance series.
Rate: B+
