Night’s Cold Kiss: Several things to cheer for

Night’s Cold Kiss by Tracey O’Hara

I have a love-hate relationship with vampires. There have been vampire novels that I’ve absolutely adored. There have been others that have flown from my hand into the wall with frightening velocity. Mostly, I just wish there weren’t so darn many vampire novels. My favorite urban fantasies, lately, have been the ones where there aren’t any vampires, or the ones where vampires play a very minor role. When an urban fantasy does feature vampires, my favorite aspects of the book tend to be the places where the author departs from the standard vampire “canon.”

Which means that there were several things to cheer for in Night’s Cold Kiss.

At first glance, Night’s Cold Kiss is quite similar to other vampire-themed novels on the market. The heroine is a butt-kicking vampire hunter, driven to that calling by a traumatic event in her past (a vampire murdered her mother). The hero is a vampire, sexy in a bad-boy sort of way. There’s a lot of slaying and a lot of sex. It’s not bad, per se — in fact, the hunting scenes and the steamy scenes are quite well done — it’s just that I felt like I’d seen this before.

Yet, from the beginning, there were hints that Tracey O’Hara wasn’t just writing a boilerplate vampire novel. The idea of the Necrodreniacs is new. Other authors have dealt with the concept of feral vampires — those who kill indiscriminately and are not governed by reason. O’Hara comes up with a reason why. A Necrodreniac is a vampire who has become addicted to the rush that occurs when a feeding results in death. Necrodrenia is incurable, and other vampires exterminate “dreniacs” any chance they get.

I also liked the unusual origin story, and what I liked best of all was the vampire-slaying school! I loved that, while natural aptitude plays a role, slayers are made and not born in O’Hara’s world. They undergo a grueling training regime and learn their craft.

We follow the heroine, Antoinette Petrescu, through a difficult time in her life. There’s a serial killer on the loose, preying on women who look just like Antoinette, and she just knows the culprit is her mother’s murderer. No one believes her, though, since Dante Rubins is supposed to be dead. Meanwhile, she wrestles with her feelings for Christian, the aforementioned sexy vampire, and with other life-changing events that would be spoily to recount here. The plot moves quickly and with lots of twists.

The last chapters are the best, in my opinion. The ending satisfied me in a way that series-openers often don’t. Night’s Cold Kiss is essentially a set-up novel, moving Antoinette into a position where she’s guaranteed to have a steady string of adventures. (And we’ll be seeing more of that vampire-slaying school!) O’Hara also has one more surprise up her sleeve. She introduces a type of character that is usually evil, tragic, or both in vampire lit, and makes this character a brave, resourceful survivor. I can’t wait to see more of her.

(I still think there are too many vampire novels out there, though.)