Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: This M/M paranormal erotica is terribly repetitious in the beginning but it turns around and has a decent ending.

Opening Sentence: The damp air was thick with the scent of blood.

The Review:

Cord Logan has been a vampire for the last two years. He recently left his sire to return to New Orleans, the place of his death. Vampires are supposed to live with their sires for one hundred years in order to learn the ways/rules of the world. Cord is very naïve as a vampire. Just one week back in New Orleans and he has let himself feel the Need for blood, when that happens, vampires can barely control themselves when feeding. Cord ends up feeding off an old friend from when he was alive, unfortunately his wounds won’t heal and Cord doesn’t know what to do. He ends up trying to make his friend into a vampire because he is dying.

Cord doesn’t like the fact that he is essentially a weak vampire as he is often reminded by the vampires who find him in New Orleans. Due to the circumstances of Cord’s human death, he ends up being drawn into a world of witches and vampires that he knows nothing about. As a boy who had been in the closet, he uses this world to fully express himself in a way he never could.

Need is not a novel for everyone. It is a male/male erotic novel and it is definitely full of sex scenes, from current time to flash backs to daydreams, Cord’s sexual nature really overrides the story. The story is slowly revealed in between each of these scenes. The one problem that I really had with Need was the early repetition in the story. Cord kept repeating himself over and over as if he hadn’t already revealed that information already. The last half of the novel is not as repetitious as the first half but if I hadn’t been reading this story for review, I wouldn’t have made it that far. It wasn’t so much that all of it was vital information either, a lot of it was about his need to feed and how dangerous it was.

This novel is told entirely from Cord’s point of view. The attention to detail while in New Orleans certainly brought me back to some of the locations I remember while being there. As this story began and Cord bit is friend, then preceded to have sex with almost every man he runs across, I did wonder where this story was going. Need did have a satisfying ending that helped wrap up Cord’s life as a vampire.

Cord really isn’t such a bad guy once you get past the repetition of his storytelling. He just wants someone to love him and he wants to stop being such a weak vampire. He doesn’t really justify his behavior but I don’t really think he needs too, even as he hears another voice in his head mocking his behaviors.

Overall, Need is a decent book if you like male/male erotic encounters. The ending made the story as opposed to the horribly repetitious beginning, because of this I wouldn’t mind finding out what would be next for Cord, if there ever was a sequel.

Notable Scene:

“Yes.” I lay back down on the bed, resting my back against some lace-edged pillows that cushioned my weight. “You said you’ve made me a god. Why would you do something like that?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Isn’t it forbidden?”

“Rules.” He waved his hand contemptuously. “What use have we for rules? Rules that were made only to keep us hidden, cowing in the shadows, while humans destroy themselves, refusing to learn, making the same mistakes over and over again?” His white body gleamed in the moonlight. “Councils of witches, councils of vampires and other creatures, all with their stupid petty rules and petty politics, all threatening us with destruction if we don’t conform and go along with their idiocies.” He turned back around, his arms folded across his chest. “Sebastian was a genius, you know. He saw how stupid if all was, how for millennia we have all denied our true natures rather than developed our abilities and our potential, all because of some stupid rules made when humans still hadn’t figured out how to wipe their asses.” His lip curled in scorn. “Sebastian’s mistake was that he thought he was the one who would be able to combine the powers of a vampire with a witch.” He shook his head. “He was a genius in many ways, but his own ambitions blinded him.”

“The key was to give a vampire witch blood to drink,” I said slowly.

He nodded. “Vampires are practically immortal; witches are not. You feel the power, don’t you?” Nico stepped back over to me. “Your body is already changing.” He reached out and grasped my right bicep muscle. Again, it felt like a current flowed through his hand through my skin and into my arm. “Your muscles feel harder, bigger.” He smiled. “Together we can rule the world.”

I pulled my arm away from him. “The Nightwatchers will never sit still for this.”

FTC Advisory: Kensington provided me with a copy of Need. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )