Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Date begun: May 20th, 2011
Date finished: May 21st, 2011
Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale became one of the Dracule to save the woman he loved at the time, and has regretted his decision for nearly a century. Unlike many of his fellow Dracule, he doesn't really enjoy a life of decadence and debauchery, he isolates himself, studying ancient texts to try to find a way out of his demonic bargain. He's not at all pleased when his associate, the vampire hunter Chas Woodmore goes missing, taking the evil Cesare Moldavi's gorgeous vampire sister Narcise with him into hiding. Bound by a promise to Woodmore, Dimitri has to act as guardian to his two younger sisters, Maia and Angelica, and protect them against the vengeful wrath of Moldavi.
Maia Woodmore is not pleased about the arrangement either. She is to be married to a promising young gentleman as soon as he returns from the Continent, and feels that packing up all their possessions to stay at Corvindale's dark and dusty old manor is entirely pointless. Yet she will respect her brother's wishes. Then her sister Angelica gets herself involved with the disreputable Viscount Dewhurst, and despite Maia's many useful suggestions, Corvindale just doesn't seem interested in listening to her. She keeps having disturbingly erotic dreams about a man biting her neck, and there seems to be no end of dangerous thugs lurking around the place trying to get to her and her sister.
The Vampire Dimitri did not take as long to get properly started as The Vampire Voss, but did repeat a number of scenes that had already been explored in the previous book from a different point of view, in some cases in a little bit more detail than entirely neccessary, in my opinion. The fact that both Dimitri and Maia are more engaging characters, and that quite a lot of the worldbuilding has now been established, so there's less need for expositiony passages that explain about the Dracule or the relationships between various factions, also helps a lot. I did find Maia's character a little bit inconsistent, she's prim, proper and very decorous one minute, then give her a glass or two of champagne punch and she'll snog any random handsome stranger who approaches. I get that she's supposed to have hidden depths of passion that just need to be unlocked, but there could have been a bit more persuading going on before she threw caution to the wind.
I've heard that the third and final book in the trilogy is supposed to be less of a retread of already established plot, and am hoping that Gleason exploring a female Dracule might lead to the best book of the lot. This book was fun, but The Regency Draculia is nothing close to as good as her first series.
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