Book #43: Kiss of the Vampire

Title: Kiss of the Vampire (formerly titled "The Night Inside")

Author: Nancy Baker

Date started reading: March 25, 2012
Date finished reading: March 28, 2012

Publish date: September 1995
ISBN: 978-0449149577
Number of pages: 278

Official summary: "Ardeth Alexander’s life is the wholly predictable one of a graduate student. She lives by schedules – for papers due, classes to attend, small jobs of research to complete for extra income. Ardeth is the responsible one – steady, dependable, maybe even a little boring. One day, when she is out for her customary early morning walk, all that changes. Ardeth is abducted by two men, blindfolded, gagged, and taken to a dirty, dank prison cell. Even more terrifying than the abduction itself is the purpose for her presence there – to sustain with her blood the life of another prisoner. But as she observes the strange grey-haired man who is kept mad with torture and hunger, and the men who force her to do their will, she begins to fear and despise her captors even more than she does the man in the next cell. Slowly, tentatively, she talks to him and tries to reach behind the madness to the man she believes is hidden within. As her relationship with Rozokov develops, the nightly feedings become sensual celebrations. Then, filled with desire for the man, fuelled with a desperate urge for revenge, and lured by the promise of immortality, Ardeth takes the final step. From the moment the vampire’s slumbering body pulsates to life until the shocking conclusion in a crumbling old mansion, The Night Inside is a thrilling and erotic tale of the thirst for blood and the lust for revenge." (http://www.nancybaker.ca/)

How I obtained the book: Received through the Paperback Swap book club. (I had to pay to mail a book to another member in order to receive a credit to request this book)

My commentary:

• I have an interesting history with this book. I read the book when it was originally published in 1993 under the title "The Night Inside." It was the first "adult" vampire book I had ever read. For many many years, it was my favorite of all the vampire books I had ever read. It set the standard for all the vampire books I read after that. I read it again a few years after the first time I read it. I recently decided to hunt down a copy of it and read it again now as an adult to see if it still holds up to how I felt as a teenager. And boy does it still hold up. It's as good, or even better, than I remembered.
• Over the years, I forgot the little details of this book. I, of course, remembered the general storyline and remembered that I absolutely loved it. I had forgotten that the male vampire's name is Dimitri. It makes total sense to me now why the Dimitri in the "Vampire Academy" series automatically caught my attention. I have associated that name with drop-dead-sexy vampires ever since I first read this book. It just makes sense that I would fall in love with the "Vampire Academy" series' Dimitri also.
• One thing I really love about how Nancy Baker wrote this book is that even though there is sex involved, it's not explicit sex. I think too many authors use sex as a plot tool to hide poor storytelling. Baker writes an amazing vampire tale without having to use sex as a crutch to make it sex.

Memorable quotes:

• "Aching with a passion inside
  Deep as the river of desire,
  The ashes and the fire
  Turning the night inside..."
• "A vampire, dear God, it's a vampire. Ardeth put her head down against the dirty blanket and tried to think clearly. ... It's not a vampire, her rationality said. It's a lunatic who thinks he's a vampire. Vampires do not exist, except as metaphors."
• "There was no pretending he was an escaped lunatic, not any more. The solid, undeniable reality of him terrified her. Her universe had been very ordered, the line between reality and fantasy clear and unmistakable. Now that line had been moved, no, shattered forever and she was left in a world without foundations." 
• "Hide, Rozokov had told her. What better place to hide could there be than in a crowd of vampire wanna-bes?"

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