Once Burned by Jeaniene Frost

Night Prince, Book 1

Synopsis: She’s a mortal with dark powers…

After a tragic accident scarred her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: terrifying powers that let her channel electricity and learn a person’s darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of solitude…until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out with a telepathic distress call to the world’s most infamous vampire…

He’s the Prince of Night…

Vlad Tepesh inspired the greatest vampire legend of all—but whatever you do, don’t call him Dracula. Vlad’s ability to control fire makes him one of the most feared vampires in existence, but his enemies have found a new weapon against him—a beautiful mortal with powers to match his own. When Vlad and Leila meet, however, passion ignites between them, threatening to consume them both. It will take everything that they are to stop an enemy intent on bringing them down in flames.

Review : I am a huge fan of the author Jeaniene Frost and her Night Huntress series. So I was very curious about her new series, Night Prince, as it focuses on Vlad, a secondary character from the Night Huntress series who had almost upstage Bones as he was so intriguing.

In the Night Prince series, the story is not narrated by Vlad himself but by Leila , the heroine of this new spin-off series. Since the accident that nearly cost her life, Leila has a power comparable to the greatest superheroes of comics: she can not only see the darkest secrets of people when she touches them (or when she touches an object belonging to them ) but in addition, she can electrocute them. This terrible ability forced her to leave her family and live on the fringe of society. Leila works in a traveling circus, which allows her to never stay long in one place and to not attract attention to herself. She performs trampoline acts with her friend Marty, a vampire dwarf who considers her as his daughter. But her life will be turned upside down the day she is kidnapped by a group of vampires. They want to use her powers in order to locate Vlad to ambush him…

I really enjoyed Once Burned ! Vlad was already one of my favorite characters in the Night Huntress series and I was eager to find out more about him. Well I have to say that concerning this point, this book has been up to my expectations because it was a real pleasure to see him here. Overall we can say that Vlad is true to form compared to what we had glimpsed of him in the other saga.

So he remained roughly the same, that is to say arrogant and overconfident but also very mysterious. All of this does not make him less endearing, on the contrary. Very protective towards the members of his lineage, he is therefore highly respected and even if sometimes his behaviour is quite terrifying, we discover other facets of his personality that make him more appealing to us. He is not like Bram Stoker’s hero at all and hates that people compare him to this character. We already knew some details about him through his appearances in the Night Huntress series but here we learn more : we have subtle glimpses into his past, his enemies, and that has made ​​him one of the creatures the most feared of all. But there is still so much to find out about him… Vlad is a fascinating character and his impressive gift of pyrokinesis makes him even more daunting.

But Leila is not outdone. She is a very intelligent young woman and she has personality. She would do anything to protect her family and friends, without acting impulsively. She is a thoughtful heroine. Her painful past made ​​her stronger. Her first encounter with Vlad is quite unusual because it is done by telepathic contact. Vlad is used to be listened to and obeyed without any discussion. But Leila has none of it and does not hesitate to rebel herself and stand up to him throughout the novel.

I loved the relationship between these two main characters. The romance is well established and evolves in a subtle way. Indeed, our two heroes are attracted, fascinated and intrigued by each other but without the early outpouring of love or feelings. Instead, they try to know better each other and try to stop the danger threating them. We feel that there is something very strong that is being created between them, but Vlad is a very complex man, and we will have to wait the sequel to see how this relationship will evolve.

The plot is well developed. Jeaniene Frost keeps us in suspense from beginning to end with her flowing but effective writing style. The rhythm of the story is good, full of action and suspense. The identity of the villain is slow in coming and I have to admit that I’d like to discover more things about him and his motivations. The end leaves us with new questions and now I can’t wait to read Book 2 to find out what will happen next.

4-5mon pseudo

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