First thing I'd like to address is this book's supposed placement in the series. It's listed on Amazon as book 7. Book 7?! Really? It takes place during the same time frame as Born of Night. That's book 1 if you were wondering. Only one other book takes place during that time frame - book 2. What does that mean exactly? Oh, nothing much other than the book listed as book 7 is a blooming unadvertised prequel and should be book... something or other .5. Oh, and the author has difficulty keeping her story straight even when written sequentially so going back and filling in a blank that maybe should have been figured into the series a long time ago...
And what a long-ass book it was. At least for once a good deal of the problems happened on page. Still...at some point reading of the H's constantly facing adversity just to survive - and being in his head while he feels sorry for himself at this - gets wearing. And then you read all his connections and you wonder..what?!
The h essentially is a contract mistress. They have this weird society whereupon being illegitimate is only a problem if papa doesn't acknowledge you (or in the H's case, can't) And, apparently, if a male's father can't or won't acknowledge him, then he's pretty much screwed - no chance for a marriage, and if he gets a woman pregnant, it's a prison sentence.
Unfortunately, while I feel - and like - the relationship, all this background noise intrudes a lot on the enjoyment.
As an aside, in either this or the previous book, it's mentioned that Nykyrian's fangs were forcibly extracted. I briefly flipped through Born of Night and caught him using his fangs during nookie, so um...run that by me again?
