Review: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Title: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Author: Kresley Cole

Published: April 2008

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Stand Alone/Series: Immortals After Dark #5
Book 1: The Warlord Wants Forever (Playing Easy to Get anthology)
Book 2: A Hunger Like No Other
Book 3: No Rest for the Wicked
Book 4: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

From the Author Site: A vampire warrior consumed by madness, trapped in the lair of an otherworldly temptress only he can see. The beauty wants him gone--the warrior can't leave.

Let the games begin...

Néomi Laress, a famous ballerina in the early 1900s, became a phantom the night she was murdered. Imbued with powers, but invisible to the living, she haunts her beloved home, scaring away any trespassers--until she encounters a ruthless immortal even more terrifying than Néomi herself.

To prevent him from harming others, Conrad Wroth's brothers imprison him in an abandoned manor. There only Conrad can see the dancer with wild raven hair--who seems determined to drive him further into madness. The exquisite creature inflames him with desire, leaving his body racked with lust and his soul torn as he finds himself coveting her for his own.

Yet even if Conrad can win Néomi and claim her completely, evil still surrounds her. Once he returns to the brutality of his past to protect her, will he succumb to the dark needs seething inside him?

Hero: Conrad Wroth: Vampire... Crazy, evil vampire turned good by love. Conrad's spent hundreds of years as one of the most brutal assassins in the Lore as well as one of the most hated beings, a vampire. Which makes him the ultimate loner. And since he has been drinking his victim dry as they die, he has gained their knowledge and memories which has made him both powerful as well as crazy. When his brothers final catch him, they imprison him in estate which is haunted by a ghost only he can see and hear.

Heroine: Neomi Laress: Ghost... While alive Neomi was a prima ballerina who loved to dance and party. The girl just loved to party. 80 years ago, she was murdered in her new home and has been haunting it ever since. For that whole time she has been alone, no one to could see her or hear her until this crazy vampire is imprisoned in her home. And since he's the only one she can interact with, she befriends him.

Review: Another great read from Kresley Cole. The loner hero who shuns everyone and everything (except the people he kills) and the very social heroine who can't interact with anyone seem like a unlikely pair, but Kresley makes it work. She makes us feel Neomi's yearning for company and someone to be with and Conrad's need to for someone to care for and protect to help him out of his insane rages.

This book is full of tension considering the hero and heroine can't touch each other for 2/3rd of the story. As a ghost, Neomi is noncorporeal and cannot touch or be touched. Kresley certainly makes you feel their need. And not only that, but he's the virgin while she's the one with experience, gotta love that twist. Not a whole lot of hawt virgin heroes out there. And Neomi definitely knows how to catch a guy's eye. Shower scene! Enough said.

Gotta love Nucking Futs Nix, the Ever-Knowing, Proto-Valkyrie and Soothsayer. She's powerful, crazy and naughty. What's not to like about her? The rage demon brothers Rydstrom and Cade make another apperance much to my delight.

Keeper?: Yes

Recommendation: Although this is book 5 in the series it can be read out of order and still have full understanding of the story and most of the background. Kresley Cole does a wonderful job in keep her Lore world alive throughout the series.

Rating: A