By the Moonlight

By the Moonlight by Jaxx Steele
Sub-genre: Vampire, m/m romance, m/m/f
Length: Novella
Format: audio book
Rating: ***
Available from: Dreamspinner Press

This is my second read (or rather listen in this case) for Erotic Horizon's Erotic Romance Reading Challange. I had mixed feelings about this one. Vampire stories are always fun, and this is the first I've read with two male vampires getting together (that shouldn't be too much of a spoiler since this is a romance) so that was refreshing. One thing I really liked was the idea of vampires who can have sex, which I prefer to the impotent vampires or bloodlust-as-a-metaphor-for-sex type of vampire story like Anne Rice's series.

Unfortunately, though, while I can suspend disbelief about bloodsucking creatures of the night, I found the characters in this book a bit hard to believe in. I could just about buy the unlikely scenario that that a man, (vampire or otherwise) who has slept with strangers on a regular basis for some years (I'm not sure how old he's supposed to be, maybe I missed it) had never thought of oral sex before, but for him to have never had a proper wank in his life until the events of this story just stretches credibility too far. I mean, presumably at some point before he was a vampire he was a teenage boy!

The plot is fine, and the sex scenes are sexy, but the dialogue is a bit clunky. I understand why Byron, a centuries old vampire might be stuck in his ways and refuse to learn modern slang, but why does a random woman the two vampires encounter talk in the same old-fashioned, stilted way? It was as though they all suddenly and inexplicably slipped back in time.

Since this one's an audiobook I ought to also mention the reader. I couldn't find his name credited, but whoever he is he has a sexy voice and did a great job of making the book come to life.

All in all By the Moonlight is not bad, and listening to it as I went about the housework certainly made doing the dishes a lot more interesting.