Under A Vampire Moon [Mass Market Paperback]

Marguerite Argeneau-Notte and her life mate Julius are on their honeymoon at a resort in St Lucia. She immediately notices that another guest of the resort is her son's life mate; she has a gift of recognizing life mates for family members. As luck would have it Carolyn is good friends with the resort's entertainment coordinator who is frantic to replace the band that had to cancel at the last minute. It's the perfect excuse to bring Christian and the band he has with his Notte cousins to the island so he can meet Carolyn.

But Carolyn is vacationing there with another friend, Bethany, to get away while the divorce from her husband is finalized. Reading her thoughts the Notte family realizes Carolyn would run from a relationship with Christian right now, especially since she believes he's so much younger than her and has very little experience with relationships. Much to Christian's chagrin his cousin tells Carolyn he's gay but the rest of the family doesn't know about it, and would Carolyn agree to act as his love interest while they're on the island so the rest of the family doesn't find out; it's a role she's played before in college for a good friend. The hope is that she'll get comfortable with him as a friend first, and not run away from his interest or when learning the truth about what they are.

There's a great deal of sexual tension and humor in a beautiful setting. Right now Christian can only make love to her through dream-walking and Carolyn is horrified that she's so turned on by the much younger gay man that she's feels she's raping him in her dreams. She feels the need to protect him from her, adding to his frustration.

Carolyn's objections to a relationship, especially with a younger man, start feeling over the top as the story progresses. At least until we finally hear about her soon-to-be-ex-husband near the end of the book and how mentally abusive he was. Then the pace and her feelings make sense. We meet a character that I'd really like to see again. Captain Jack needs his own story.

I'd stopped reading the series a number of books back. Not because I didn't enjoy them, but with reading so many different authors, I had to pick and choose what to keep reading with time and money constraints. I enjoyed this story, the setting and the characters. It was nice to be reacquainted with that world.

Can you believe that this is the 19th Argeneau book? I really enjoyed Under A Vampire Moon and for me it was much better than the last couple of entries in Lynsay Sands' light vampire romance series - I wasn't that fond of the last few books which were starting to make Sands' old tried and true formula feel a bit tired.

This time around Christian Notte, son to matchmaking Margarite and half brother to the characters in the first four books, is in the lead. While on a tropical island honeymoon with her new/old mate, Margarite's spidey senses discover a potential lifemate for her son in the forty something Carolyn, who is taking a vacation in the sun to celebrate the end of her disastrous marriage. So of course Margarite does what she does best and pulls the strings to get Christian and his Notte cousins' band a gig in order to get Christian there as soon as possible.

With his cousins and his parents there to put the pieces in play to help Christian woo Carolyn -who is skittish about her attraction to the 'much younger' Christian - the story felt much fresher and it felt more like the earlier books in the series. And since I was able to accept the big ploy to keep Christian's lifemate from fleeing her attraction to him long enough to for the nanos to do their magic, Under a Vampire Moon worked for me.

The fact that Christian has to try to keep his desire in check in order to keep Carolyn around long enough to get to know him and fall in love with him, works to keep romantic tension high with much of the steamy stuff between Christian and Carolyn initially coming from shared lifemate dreams. And I was happy that this meant that there were no 'little Christian' references this time around - it was hilarious in Thomas' book but Sands had really worn that joke out - but if you are hooked on funny man part quips don't worry the cousins take up the slack.

Other things that I liked about Under a Vampire Moon were: the way that the family 'helps' Christian to win his lifemate - this adds some humorous moments to the story - and the fact that this 19th time around Sand's didn't feel it necessary to connect all of the dots to the eternal HEA for Christian and Carolyn, there was just the right amount of detail to let the reader know it was a done deal without doing a rehash of all of the events a human lifemate needs to take to get there.

So, I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed Under a Vampire Moon and the teaser at the end for The Lady is a Vamp, due out in July, has me looking forward to the next book as well.

ARC provided by Amazon Vine

Lynsay Sands writes a very delightful romantic comedy of Carolyn Connor, a 40s something woman who has been badly burned by a previous romantic relationship and the sexy, young looking musician/entertainer Christian Notte. Christian is Marguerite Argeneau's Italian son who is eager to claim a life mate, and willing to accept the fiction his female cousin Gia creates that he is an in the closet gay man who needs Carolyn's help in passing as straight.

The writing is playful, and fits seamlessly into the ongoing epic of the Argeneau clan. Situational comedy with witty banter and loving family warmth (on the vampire side) that make the reading enjoyable.