Dhampirs Need Love, Too.

Hey Okra lovers

As you may know, I tend to avoid violence. I am not entertained by it on the TV, the screen, my life or in a book. Science fiction violence on the other hand, completely entertains me.
I really like vampire violence. Their ability to fly and tone their killer skills for centuries usually makes them invincible. I am not one of those people who want to meet or be a vampire. I do not think that they exist. Zombies on the other hand scare the bejeebus out of me.

I had first heard about hybrid vampires creatures when I watched my first Blade movie. After that I read the Vampire Huntress series. The heroine’s womb is coveted by high ranking vampires. She is the only person on Earth that can bear a daywalker. I read the first four books before the mythology had my head spinning.

I went on to read the first three books of the Dark Series about the Carpathian vampires who are really not vampires. They are blood drinkers, yes, but not undead. Although their race is on the verge of extinction, they can have children and in the few books that I read the males were seeking out human mates. I stopped reading them when I realized that the author had an affinity for using the word “velvet.” I remember the days of the velvet paintings and I did not want to have those images pop in my head every time I read a chapter.

Anyway, I was intrigued by all the manifestations of half human and half vampire people.
Unfortunately, I watched Bloodrayne with high expectations of following a new day-walker. But she was called a dhampir. Despite the A-list and B-list actors the movie sucked cabbage, and I love Billy Zane in everything. There was so much cabbage sucking took place that I am confident to write “someone lost a bet.”

I wanted to scrub my eyes after watching the sex scene. Kristana Loken should be ashamed of the sounds she makes on screen.

The Night Huntress novels by Jeaniene Frost introduced me to a kick-ass dhampir with daddy issues. She lives to please her mother and earn her love but until she bleeds out her vampire blood, her mother will not truly accept her. I loved her and cannot get enough. What daughter doesn’t wonder if her mother is proud of her? How often has a mother told a daughter that she hates her boyfriend even those who are not demon-spawned vampires? I get her. I like her.

So, when I saw this book at the library last December, I had to read it.


The jacket read “Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs live very short, very violent lives. So far, Dory has managed to maintain her sanity by unleashing her anger on those demons and vampires who deserve killing.”

I was hooked. I read the book in three days (I still had hooking and knitting to do). Dory is amazing. I liked the first person narrative but her descriptions of the fight scenes are incredibly confusing. The book is in the same world as the Cassie Palmer series which I have not read. I followed along just fine without the backstory. Even so, I will read the short story of Dory’s roommate in On the Prowl. The story introduces Dory and a reader can absorb some of the action in Midnight’s Daughter easier by reading the Cassie Palmer books. I had a few WTF moments that I could have avoided.

Dory is prone to blackouts. On one hand, as a literary technique it makes the author look lazy. On the other hand, I understood Dory’s coping mechanism a lot better. She has more than just Daddy issues. She has serious gaps in her memory that haunt her. Then she starts to have these flashback visions after drinking wine. I know. I was surprised, too. After living for 500 years, she still cannot hold her alcohol.

Her vampire kin wants to kill her on sight. Her roommate is missing. And she has just been summoned by her long lost father.
Leia had some Daddy issues....
In the first chapters she asserts to herself that she is independent of her father’s influence and is getting along just fine living in on her own working as a bad vampire killer. As the novel progresses, I understood that her relationship with her father has more layers than an onion. Dory wants us to believe that in order to find her missing roommate/best friend she will capitalize on her father’s need to have Dracula killed in exchange for his assistance. Nothing more….. Even though, the job is near impossible to complete, I wanted to believe her. In reality, she wants to rid herself the rages caused by her father’s cursed blood; she wants to define her role in the vampire world; and she wants to be recognized for it. I also thinks she wants to flirt with the sexy Master Vampire Louis-Cesare a little, too. She should just focus on killing Dracula.

At the end of the book, I giggled to myself thinking “this girl is an addict and doesn’t even know it.”