Darkest Heart

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not Collins good
Review: As a huge fan of the Sonja Blue series, and Collins as a writer, I must say that I was very dissapointed with this book. While it is ok, it does not live up to her previously fantastic style. It lacks that something that only Nancy A. Collins can give it. It reads alright, but at times feels like she was rushed. If you like Sonja Blue get it, but don't look for something of Paint it Black, Sunglasses after Dark, A Dozen Black Roses, or even Angels on Fire's calibur.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not a good Nancy A. Collins book.
Review: I have been a long time fan of Nancy Collins, all the way back to her Swamp Thing days at DC Comics, so it was with a sense of coming home that I picked up her latest novel, Darkest Heart.

Darkest Heart is a new Sonja Blue vampire novel, a series that has quite a following and has garnered several awards. Darkest Heart is the fifth Sonja Blue book, and unfortunately, my least favorite.

First off, the entire first chapter has been previously published, twice in fact. The first time was as a chapbook, and the second time as the third chapter in the third SB novel, Sunglasses After Dark. Collins explains that since Darkest Heart deals with people and events from that book, she included it here. To me this was unnecessary, as fans of the series would immediately recognize the people and events of Darkest Heart.

Secondly, and this ties into the first, it is a pretty short novel, 216 pages. When you subtract the previously published chapter, you are left with well under 200 pages of new material. You definitely aren't getting a lot of new Sonja Blue for your money.

What makes it all the worse, is that even barring the above-mentioned issues, the book itself really is not that good. It feels rushed and it strikes me as an easy money-making exercise, something a writer of Collins' talent could easily put together in a short period of time.

If you are a true Sonja Blue fan who must have everything, spend the money and buy this book, but if you are just a casual fan of the series, or just looking to see what the fuss about Nancy A. Collins is about, stay away from Darkest Heart and go pick up Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection, which contains the first three novels in this series.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling !
Review: I thought this story was very compelling. I enjoyed the characters and the flow of the entire read was right up my alley.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling !
Review: I thought this story was very compelling. I enjoyed the characters and the flow of the entire read was right up my alley.

Rating:
Summary: "Compelling Plot"
Review: My, my, my...What a story "Darkest Heart" by creative storyteller, Nancy Collins was...I loved it! The story was most intriguing, the characters well-developed, and the dialogue easy to follow and relate to. Ms. Collin's quickly pulls the reader into her spell during the first few pages holding them captive throughout the entire read.

A super story by a super writer...Take '10' Ms. Collins, you've earned it!

Rating:
Summary: Seductive horror with savage predators
Review: Nancy Collins' new addition to her vampire books is a complex tale of a female vampire that seems to have a split personality. Sonja Blue's "inner demon" is a vampire that is ruthless and demands human blood and great sacrifice. This personality takes control, and Sonja dreams the events in nightmares that she discovers are real.

Yet Sonja the vampire is also a vampire hunter, and wants to rid the world of these dark hearted villains, which would ultimately mean she also must die after the last vampire does. She dares not have close attachments to any mortal, for when the fiend inside her gets free, the man or woman Sonja has learned to care for will be attacked, and then lust, and desire addict them to the vampire's blood. It is their blood that heals her and their only release is death, and they are so caught up in the hunger for her they do not mind.

Now Sonja is the target of a vampire hunter named Jack Estes, and an ancient vampire with the darkest heart. Jack is human, he would destroy Sonja, therefore, and she must convince him of her nature -- and will have to reveal its duplicity, which keeps him in danger at all times.

For fans of Nancy Collins' vampire series, this is a winner. For those of us who inadvertently pick this book as the first to read, it is difficult. For me to know Sonja, I would have to read books one through four, so I found the shifts inconceivable and her duplicity difficult to follow.

A writer does not reach book five in a series without a large following. This book is for those readers, not for first time readers of the Sonja Blue chronicles.

Rating:
Summary: Seductive horror with savage predators
Review: Nancy Collins' new addition to her vampire books is a complex tale of a female vampire that seems to have a split personality. Sonja Blue's "inner demon" is a vampire that is ruthless and demands human blood and great sacrifice. This personality takes control, and Sonja dreams the events in nightmares that she discovers are real.

Yet Sonja the vampire is also a vampire hunter, and wants to rid the world of these dark hearted villains, which would ultimately mean she also must die after the last vampire does. She dares not have close attachments to any mortal, for when the fiend inside her gets free, the man or woman Sonja has learned to care for will be attacked, and then lust, and desire addict them to the vampire's blood. It is their blood that heals her and their only release is death, and they are so caught up in the hunger for her they do not mind.

Now Sonja is the target of a vampire hunter named Jack Estes, and an ancient vampire with the darkest heart. Jack is human, he would destroy Sonja, therefore, and she must convince him of her nature -- and will have to reveal its duplicity, which keeps him in danger at all times.

For fans of Nancy Collins' vampire series, this is a winner. For those of us who inadvertently pick this book as the first to read, it is difficult. For me to know Sonja, I would have to read books one through four, so I found the shifts inconceivable and her duplicity difficult to follow.

A writer does not reach book five in a series without a large following. This book is for those readers, not for first time readers of the Sonja Blue chronicles.

Rating:
Summary: Seductive horror with savage predators
Review: Nancy Collins' new addition to her vampire books is a complex tale of a female vampire that seems to have a split personality. Sonja Blue's "inner demon" is a vampire that is ruthless and demands human blood and great sacrifice. This personality takes control, and Sonja dreams the events in nightmares that she discovers are real.

Yet Sonja the vampire is also a vampire hunter, and wants to rid the world of these dark hearted villains, which would ultimately mean she also must die after the last vampire does. She dares not have close attachments to any mortal, for when the fiend inside her gets free, the man or woman Sonja has learned to care for will be attacked, and then lust, and desire addict them to the vampire's blood. It is their blood that heals her and their only release is death, and they are so caught up in the hunger for her they do not mind.

Now Sonja is the target of a vampire hunter named Jack Estes, and an ancient vampire with the darkest heart. Jack is human, he would destroy Sonja, therefore, and she must convince him of her nature -- and will have to reveal its duplicity, which keeps him in danger at all times.

For fans of Nancy Collins' vampire series, this is a winner. For those of us who inadvertently pick this book as the first to read, it is difficult. For me to know Sonja, I would have to read books one through four, so I found the shifts inconceivable and her duplicity difficult to follow.

A writer does not reach book five in a series without a large following. This book is for those readers, not for first time readers of the Sonja Blue chronicles.

Rating:
Summary: The Unkindest Cut
Review: Sonja Blue is a vampire with an extremely bad attitude. Ever resentful of the act that took away her future as a human being and left her mind at war with itself, Sonja has chosen to make vampires her preferred victims. She and here silver switchblade have gained a black reputation in an underworld full of dark reputations. Most 'pretenders' have heard of her, and those that prey on humans have every reason to fear her.

Perhaps the people who should really fear her are the humans that penetrate Sonja's isolation and, for an inevitably short time become something like lovers. Sonja, who spends most of her emotional resources seeking revenge and fighting for control over the 'other' that shares her mind, has little left for partners. Darkest Heart is the story of two such men.

The first of this is Judd. Fans of Sonja will recognize the short story that begins this novel. Judd was attracted to Sonja because he liked her as a human, not for the dark horror that lay within. For Sonja this was overwhelming, but her coping mechanisms are self destructive and the relationship ends in disaster.

The novel itself tells the story of Jack Estes, a vampire hunter himself, who joins up with Sonja to hunt the vampire that killed his father. For Sonja, who doesn't take lovers or partners any longer, the connection is full of anxiety and doubt. But this is an opportunity to take on a vampire noble in the security of his own lair. And of course, there is something more. Other than her lust for blood Estes and Sonja have much in common. This mutual understanding becomes impossible to resist.

Collins makes a point in her afterword of declaring that this is her last Sonja Blue novel. So far, this seems to be the case. Yet, by itself, Darkest Heart seems incomplete, begging for a sequel. The writing is erratic, and the reader will sense that there really is some level of internal dissatisfaction that drives the story. Collins wants to be more than a writer of quirky vampire novels, and it is impossible to blame her. On hopes that at some point in her development Collins returns to complete this stories unfinished business. Sonja deserves more than the lingering, endless dark.

Rating:
Summary: Totally in the Dark
Review: Very very disappointing. Didn't go anywhere except in circles. Waste of my time and money. Note that I think Sunglasses After Dark is a super book.