Death's Mistress: A Midnight's Daughter Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Karen Chance does it again with the second book, Death's Mistress. I loved it and would absolutely recommend it!

Dorina "Dory" Basarab is a dhampir - half human, half vampire. When her half Dark Fey friend, Claire, shows up, Dory knows her life is not going to ease up. Aiden, Claire's nine-month-old son, is the heir to the Fey throne. Multiple attempts have been made on the boy's life. Dory begins a search for the Naudiz, a magical Fey relic that makes its wearer invulnerable.

Senator Mircea Basarab is Dory's vampire father. Since the Senate's intelligence organization has all its members busy, Lord Mircea is hiring Dory more and more often for her mercenary skills. Dory is sent after a fifth-level master vampire's head. Even beheaded, a fifth-level would survive over a week; the head could talk and the body would be mobile in hopes of locating each other and healing before it's too late. But the gorgeous vampire Louis-Cesare steals the head from Dory, leaving her with an animated body that others are trying to eliminate before the head talks too much to the wrong people.

Louis-Cesare needs the head to locate and rescue his former mistress, Christine, before her demise. It just so happens that Christine is currently bound to the same master vampire that has the relic Claire so desperately needs. Once again, Dorina and Louis-Cesare must work together or they will both lose. When they finally locate the master vampire, he is dead - the final death. But things are even worse than they already appear, because someone is killing vampire Senate members. Unless the duo can stop the murderer, they might be next.

**** FOUR STARS! If you did not read the first title in this series, Midnight's Daughter, do not fret. You will not feel lost at all. The author has done a fantastic job giving new readers all the information they need without coming across as a boring narration.

From the beginning until the ending this story is non-stop chaos of the sort only the undead or the Fey can deliver. Though Dorina and Louis-Cesare are polar opposites in the royalty gene pool, they are more alike than either would admit, even under duress. For the reader, that means high entertainment whether the pair are in the bedroom or on the battlefield. High drama indeed. ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Dorina is now working for/with her father running errands, aka killing vamps and bringing in their heads as trophies. Trying to live an as-normal-as-possible life isn't easy when you are a dhampir and being best friend with a fey princess on the run may spice up things a little. Claire is back from faery and needs help retrieving a family heirloom meant to protect her son. So far so good, but the difficulty level hits the roof when the missing heirloom ends up at a secret auction where multiple vampires, member of the Senate, try to get their hands on it, and some of them are found dead.
Like Dori didn't have enough on her hands, Louis-Cesare got involved, after being MIA for over a month, because his mistress, Christine, is held prisoner by one of the greedy Senate member.

I have conflicted feeling about that book. I think the intrigue was fairly good, the entire book was action-packed and I didn't guess the real culprit until the last 30 pages or so. But I think some aspect might have needed a little more polishing. For instance, I felt like chapter 39 would have been a great deleted scene, as I found it useless, it's about 15 pages long, Dori is at the Mages Championship (some kind of race), in the whole thing brought nothing to the story.

Overall I preferred the first book over this one, I felt like even though there was a good plot, something was missing, I didn't get that little spark I'm looking for in a book. I am suspecting it's probably because we didn't see Louis-Cesare much. Maybe also because I didn't connect as much with Dori is I did in the first book. She doesn't have any rage-fits, she's not as spicy. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed.

On the plus side, we got to discover more about Dori's parents. I loved to see Mircea open up a bit and hope we discover more!
Also, the end was really good. The loop was well rounded and there is hope for a good follow-up. I am not giving up on this series, but I really hope I'll get more romance in the next book because I was romance-depraved in that one.