The Vampire Narcise by Colleen Gleason

Skilled in the seduction of men, both mortal and immortal, Narcise Moldavi is the greatest weapon in her twisted brother's war among the Dracule. Until she falls for Giordan Cale.

Her first searing encounter with Giordan seals their fierce connection for their eternal lives. But Giordan's vow to help Narcise escape her brother's rule is followed by a betrayal more agonizing than sunlight.

Wounded but determined, Narcise ensnares vampire hunter Chas Woodmore in her quest for revenge and to reclaim her life. He wants her, worships her, will kill for her.

And the Dracule never forget a wrong— nor do they forgive.

I was a bit worried when I knew that I was about to start this book. The first two books were okay, but the second bothered me a bit due to the repetition of the story from the first book. If this book had started at the same point and retold it again, I am not sure that I would have continued reading.

Instead the novel starts ten years earlier. Narcise Moldavi is the prisoner of her brother, Cezar, compelled to regularly fight against opponents organised by him. If they win, they get her to do with as they please. If she wins, she is left alone.Given her extensive training over many, many years, she generally wins.

Enter Giordan Cale, another vampire and visitor to Cezar to enter into a business deal. He sees Narcise and wants her instantly, and for a while it seems as though he will be the first man in many years to get underneath her cold, distant but beautiful facade. Cezar is a game player from way back, and he manipulates the situation in such a way as to ensure that Narcise is left believing that Giordan has deceived her in a way that she can never forgive.

I loved this part of the story. Setting up the how it was that Narcise was under the control of her horrid brother, the lengths he would go to ensure that Narcise remained his possession, the strong connection between Giordan and Narcise and the depth of Cezar's conflicted emotions in relation to her, and how far he would go to get what he would want made for compelling and interesting reading.

The story moves on ten years, and my instant thought on reading that was uh-oh, here comes the repetition, but thankfully Colleen Gleason avoided that trap. Most of the action is alluded to, skirted around the edges if you like. Narcise is still under the control of her brother until she is rescued by Chas Woodmore, brother to the heroines of Vampire Voss and Vampire Dimitri. Chas is a vampire hunter who hates the fact that he is attracted to vampires, but he is very attracted to Narcise. She however, has not allowed herself to feel anything for any man since Giordan. She does allow herself one emotion when she thinks of the man who betrayed her - hatred, strong and pure. She is however willing to attach herself to Chas because he can save her from the life she has been living for so long.

There were times that I found myself wondering why this hadn't been the first book in the series with the set up, the rescuing of Narcise (which you knew about in the first two books but didn't see), but I suspect if you read this third book without having read at least the first book it would be a little difficult to follow the narrative. It needed the foundation that had been set in those earlier books, despite the fact that a lot of the action in this book took place before the events of the first two books, and then after those two books.

Unlike in the first two books, which to me were basically standard romance novels draped in paranormalcy and dressed in Regency attire, this book took some risks. Whilst the back cover blurb makes it clear who the hero of this book is going to be, the relationship between Chas and Narcise was also strong and well developed, putting her in the position of having to choose between two men who loved her.

I was glad to find out more about the talents of the younger Woodmore sister, and I can't help but wonder if we might hear more about her in future. I did find myself wondering again why Maia missed out in terms of special talents (other than bossiness), but maybe it was just to make it a little less predictable. I have no idea what Gleason's plans are in terms of what she is working on next.

One of the key features of all three novels was how do the vampires escape the fate that they have chosen, and I found the transformation that Giordan had undergone, and the impact of that transformation to be quite interesting, and certainly wasn't a twist that I have seen in a vampire novel before. Did I find the outcome for Narcise to be believable? Well not really, but it would be a bit irrelevant to say that you need to suspend disbelief, because these are paranormal romance novels and so you have to suspend disbelief from the beginning.

For me, this trilogy started out slowly, was repetitive, but ended on a high with this book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the e-ARC.


Rating: 4/5

The Vampire Dimitri by Colleen Gleason

Regency London loves a Society wedding –

Even if there are vampires on the guest list.

Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale, should be delighted that the headstrong Maia Woodmore is getting married. His mortal ward and houseguest has annoyed – and bewitched – the Dracule nobleman too long, and denying his animal cravings grows more excruciating by the day.

Miss Woodmore's family has a rather...complicated history with the immortals and she herself possesses a keen sensibility far beyond mere women's intuition. Marriage will give her safety, respectability, and everything else a proper young lady could wish for. Everything, that is, except for passion.

In the looming battle between Dracule factions, all pretenses will shatter as Maia and Dimitri come together in an unholy union of danger, desperation, and fiercest desire.

This book is the second book in the Regency Draculia trilogy, which started with The Vampire Voss. Actually, it is probably fairer to say that the first half of this book is a retelling of many of the events from Vampire Voss from a different perspective. Now, done well, there can be merit in repeating many of the same events, but there wasn't enough difference for me not to be a bit bored.

The strongest aspect of this book is definitely Dimitri. He is your quintessential English earl. If you read historical romances, you have met Dimitri before. He is arrogant, he is remote, he is cold, a man of duty and honor, which has in the past cost him dearly. He is also driven, having been searching for many years for a way to break his deal with the devil that led to him becoming a vampire in the first place. His regimented and peaceful life is turned upside down when he is obligated to honour a promise made to the vampire hunter Chas Woodmore. If anything should happen to him, Woodmore's two sisters Maia and Angelica are to become Dimitri's responsibility, and to ensure that they are kept safe from Dimitri and Chas's mutual enemies.

To Dimitri's immense relief, his responsibilities should be completed in a short period of time. Either Chas will return, or if not, Maia's fiance should be back soon from his travels. The couple can be married, and set up their own home where they can be responsible for Angelica. That means that the interfering Maia will very soon be out of his house and out of his life, hopefully before she drives him to complete distraction by her bossiness, and by her mere presence awaking emotions and feelings that had been long dormant.

At this point I have to say that I love to read about characters like Dimitri, tortured, tormented, and so meticulously remote, but then who come undone when a woman gets under the facade. Unfortunately, I need to like the woman a whole lot more than I liked Maia. She was portrayed as headstrong and independant, but she just annoyed me a lot of the time.

I mentioned previously that there was a lot of rehashing in this book and it was, at times, tedious. I almost cheered with relief when I realised that we were finally going to get to some new story. That is, until I found myself wishing that I could go back to the previous story.

All of this sounds quite negative, but I don't mean it to be. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the storyline, but there is not a lot new here either. I think that is part of what I am missing with this series. The Gardella Vampires series was fresh, and unusual, but this book is pretty standard paranormal romance fare, albeit in a Regency setting. (I will say that I have read the third book and I did get some of that point of difference that I was looking for in that).

So, if you read Vampire Voss and liked what you saw of Dimitri in that book, read this one. A lot of people didn't necessarily like Voss all that much, but you will need the background before you move on to the third book in the trilogy, which for me at least, was the highlight.

Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason

Regency London – a dizzying whirl of balls and young ladies pursued by charming men.

But the Woodmore sisters are hunted by a more sinister breed: Lucifer's own.


Voss, also known as Viscount Dewhurst, relishes the sensual pleasures immortality affords. A member the Dracule – a cabal of powerful, secretive noblemen marked with a talisman that reveals their bartered souls – the mercenary Voss has remained carefully neutral ... until Angelica.

Angelica Woodmore possess the Sight, an ability invaluable to both sides of a looming war among the Dracule. Her very scent envelops Voss in a scarlet fog of hunger – for her body and her blood. But he is utterly unprepared for the new desire that overcomes him – to protect her.

Now Voss must battle his very nature to be with Angelica ... but this vampire never backs down from a fight.

One of the best things about Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire series was that it was different. Yes, it was a series with vampires, but it was set in the Regency, the main focus was the vampire hunters rather than the vampire itself, and it was the female character who had the power.

In this, the first instalment of the Vampire Draculia trilogy, we are back in more familiar territory. Whilst there is a vampire hunter, who may become more important as the series progresses, it is the vampires that are the focus here, and it is the male vampire at that. The series is again set in the Regency,  but the things that made the Gardella series stand out a bit are missing.

The other thing is that where the Gardella series had a more urban fantasy feel, this first book at least is firmly in romance territory. Now, as a romance reader that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Gleason had a strong supporter base of readers who didn’t normally read romance and I am not sure that all of those readers will necessarily follow her past this first book.

The vampire mythology is pretty standard for the most part – need blood to feed, can’t go in the sunlight, can use his eyes to cast a thrall on his unsuspecting victims. There were a couple of twists that I thought were interesting, the first being that there is one item that weekends each individual vampire and that item is different for all of them, and if they are smart they will keep that weakness a secret lest someone take advantage of that knowledge. The other I can’t tell you about without spoiling, so you will have to read to find out what that is!

Voss Arden, Lord Dewhirst is 148 years old, and has been a vampir for the vast majority of that time. He is a man who lives by his appetites and has done for many years. He thinks nothing of feeding off of or bedding young misses of whatever part of society. He is also a loner, by choice. By not aligning himself with either of the vampire factions he provides information to both sides, at a price, and as a result if not exactly trusted by them he can gain access to both sides.


Our heroine, Miss Angelica Woodmore, is a young society miss with a difference. She has the gift of the sight, and by touching an item belong to someone she can tell how that person is to die. It is a very handy gift to have, especially when other young ladies in the ton ask her to tell her about the futures of prospective husbands.

When her brother goes missing, her elder sister Maia is extremely worried, especially when it turns out that he has made his sisters the ward of Dimitri , a man she has never met before. Angelica is not so worried. She knows what the scene will look like when her brother dies and it isn’t now. She carries the burden of this knowledge about her nearest and dearest.

Quite unusually she has seen the death of a man that she has never met before in her dreams. When he turns up dressed exactly as she saw him to a ball, she tries to warn his companions, one of them being Voss, and so their story begins. Voss knows that one of the  Woodmore sisters has the Sight. It is a question of which one. Being the mercenary he is, he wants information, and he will do whatever he can to get it. Unfortunately, the other major vampire group, headed by a vampire called Moldavia, also want the Woodmore sisters for the same reason, and they are likely to do much more than just gain the information.


Voss therefore feels compelled to ensure Miss Woodmore’s safety. Dimitri however thinks that Angelica needs to be kept safe from Voss, and therefore as Voss tries to protect her, Dimitri tries to keep her away from him, and other vampires circle trying to kidnap her too.


The biggest weakness in this book for me was Angelica. She has the Sight and it is used a couple of times during the first part of the book, but after setting up, this didn’t play a huge role in the later events in the book. She was just kind of there for a lot of the book, as an object of desire as seen through Voss’s burning vampire eyes.

Due to the fact that I can’t stop reading a series once I start it, and because I have requested the next two books in the series from Netgalley, I will read the rest of the trilogy. Maybe the move to a straighter romance structure will gain Gleason new fans amongst romance readers, but I am not sure that many of her other non romance reading fans will come along for the ride with her.