This audacious second installment of the Texas Vampire series (after Bond of Blood
) blends European and American history and contemporary paranormal romance into a shockingly heady brew. Beautiful widow Hélène d'Agelet fell hard for Jean-Marie St. Just, George Washington's former spymaster turned compañero
—enslaved by blood—to the sister of powerful vampiro mayor
Don Rodrigo Perez. The Napoleonic wars disrupted their affair, and after an explosive espionage incident involving Hélène's sister, double agent Celeste de Sainte-Pazanne, Hélène and Jean-Marie believed each other dead for centuries. Celeste's lover, Raoul, killed her parents, so Hélène killed Raoul. Now the sisters, both of whom have become vampiras
, are hunting each other down, bent on revenge. Filling the story with explosions and blood and the prose with enough French, Spanish and purely invented terms to require a glossary, Whiteside merrily rampages through history and vampire lore, building an impressively sturdy and compelling narrative from the wreckage. (Jan.)
