TALL, DARK AND VAMPIRE (Dead in the City #1) by Sara Humphreys-a review

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RELEASE DATE: August 5, 2013

The last person Olivia Hollingsworth expected to see at her Greenwich Village vampire club was her one true love, Doug Paxton—whom she believed to be dead for centuries. Olivia thought she had moved on, but when Doug reappears, her heart knows she’d rather die than lose him again.

Ever since Doug can remember, a red-haired siren has haunted his dreams. He never thought she could be real until he goes to investigate a murder at Olivia’s night club. However, as the bodies keep piling up at her feet, he must fight to prove her innocence—even if it costs him his life…

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REVIEW: TALL, DARK and VAMPIRE is the first installment in Sara Humphreys new Dead in the City series focusing on the vampires of New York City. Although the series is not necessarily a spinoff from Sara’s Amoveo Legend series about shapeshifters, Tall, Dark and Vampire does have a couple of characters who cross over that give the story a more familiar edge.

Olivia Hollingsworth is a three hundred year old vampire who lost her life and her love the night she was made. Twenty years ago she began having dreams about her former love which isn’t all that bad, but vampires do not dream. And to complicate matters, the dreams were becoming more lifelike and real. But a series of vicious murders leading to a newly made coven of rogue vampires would bring in the NYPD and Olivia’s long lost love, who had died more than three centuries earlier or had he?

Doug Paxton is a NY city police officer and his dreams about a beautiful red-haired woman were coming true the night he walked into The Coven-an nightclub owned by Olivia Hollingsworth-and the woman of his dreams. Together Doug and Olivia would begin the hunt for a coven of rogue vampires, but who was their maker and why was he/she trying to implicate Olivia and her coven in the murders?

Sara Humphreys has written a storyline of second chances and new beginnings in Tall, Dark and Vampire. The reader is taken on a journey through one woman’s centuries of guilt and the need to protect those in harms way or risk everything that she is in doing so. Olivia’s ‘family of vampires’ are a coven of likeable characters and there is definitely a hint of an upcoming storyline for one or two.

Olivia and Doug are relatable and could pass as your ordinary every day human, as well as Olivia’s coven of vampires and friends. Although Doug is at first reticent to accept the situation, he will quickly learn that to be with the woman who has captured both his heart and his soul, he must accept what is, even if he must sacrifice himself, to save the woman he loves.

Sara Humphreys brings the world of the Amoveo Legend into Tall, Dark and Vampire with the appearance of half-demon/half-vampire Pete and in doing so, brings some familiarity into the storyline for fans of Sara and her beloved shapeshifting series.

As an introductory storyline, Tall, Dark and Vampire had just enough world building to peak the interest of any reader including a little bit of history behind the first vampire and the governing body of the Presidium. If you like a story with a little bit of sex, a little bit of romance and a little bit of mystery, Tall, Dark and Vampire is a must read for fans of the paranormal storylines.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy