Early Review: The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason

Voss, also known as Viscount Dewhurst, relishes the sensual pleasures immortality affords. A member of 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 possesses 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.

I received a copy from Netgalley for review.

Note: Mild spoilers

Genre: Historical Paranormal Romance
Pub Date: 3/29/11 according to Netgalley and 3/22 according to author's website
Format: Paperback and e-book

I've never read Ms. Gleason, but I've always heard good things about her books, so I didn't know what to expect. I did hope for a good solid and entertaining read. The Vampire Voss started out strong, but quickly went a way that left me less than enthralled with the story.

Voss himself is a rather fascinating character. He's an opportunistic mercenary that revels in his existence as a vampire. He loves feeding, loves debauching women and he loves procuring and selling information about his fellow Dracule. He's not overly tall or physically impressive, but is instead almost pretty, very into the latest fashions and lives by his wits as well as the edge his vampiric powers give him. I appreciated that Ms. Gleason showed how much of a vampire he really is. How much he enjoyed being one, but after a time it began to feel a bit much. More on that later.

Angelica started out as a great character. She has the ability to see a specific event in the future, people's deaths, and she knows about and accepts her gift for what it is. She even has a little side gig going on where she sells the information to interested parties in the ton. She's very forthright and open. Not a withering belle, this one. I really appreciated this about her. However, as the story progresses and events unfold, I couldn't help but be disappointed in her singular ability to be oblivious to the obvious. They are attacked by Vampires. She comes to terms with the fact that vamps exist, but when it becomes painfully obvious that Voss is, indeed, a vampire, she just doesn't see and is therefore absolutely shocked and betrayed when the truth comes out. This was irksome to me.

As for the romance between Voss and Angelica, again, I loved how it started. Voss is so very hedonistic and Angelica is brazen and wiser than many, but still very much an innocent. Voss wants nothing to do with the attraction he feels for her, he's a look out for number one kinda guy and he only wants the information he can get from her, but he cannot fight the pull between them. Their first kiss and the dialogue surrounding it was unbelievably heated. The way he always asked her to use his name and not his title, the way he couldn't fight the protective feelings she brought out in him, this all made me hope for a passionate romance, but that seemed to go flat about halfway through the book. I won't go into details, and again, I appreciate the realism of Voss being a vampire and needing blood and desiring sex to survive, however, I find it less than romantic when the hero does every available body but the heroine for most of the book. Aside from romantic and character issues that I had with the story, the ending was, in my opinion, a complete cop out. I was not left satisfied.

In the end, there were great moments, but it just wasn't enough to make me happy. And aside from my issues with the main characters, I really didn't like many of the other characters in The Vampire Voss, either.

Final Grade: C-

This book is the beginning of a trilogy. The next book features the annoying and unreasonable older sister of Angelica and the dour Dimitri. While the third, by my guess, features the bitchy (although I sympathize with her) female vamp, Narcise, and Angelica's and Maia's vampire hunter brother. I'm hoping the characters are better in their own books.

The Vampire Voss