Bound by Night (Moonbound Clan Vampires, #1)

by Larissa Ione

Nicole Martin was only eight years old when she narrowly survived a massacre: her family's vampire slaves rebelled and killed everyone in her household. Twenty years later, Nicole now dedicates herself to finding a vaccine against vampirism . . . and eradicating the gruesome memories that give her nightmares.

Riker, a member of the wild vampire Moon Clan, is haunted by his own demons - his wife Lorraine had been captured and enslaved by the Martin family. It was during a botched escape attempt that she was killed, along with their unborn child. Still wracked with grief and anger, Riker is now fuelled solely by the desire to rescue vampire slaves . . . and slaughter their owners.

When Riker stumbles upon Nicole in a chance meeting, he immediately recognizes her as a member of the Martin family that once enslaved his wife -and she recognizes him as the wild vampire she saw kissing a pregnant slave in the moments before her violent death - an image that has haunted her dreams for years.

When Riker kidnaps Nicole and they spend a night together in a cave on the way back to his clan, suddenly they begin to realize that they aren't as different from one another as they may have thought - and they're finding themselves drawn to one another . . .

• ISBN10: 1476700176
• ISBN13: 9781476700175
• Publish Date: 24 September 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Pocket Books
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[EBookObsessed]

Once Nicole Martin believed in a fantasy world where the family’s vampire servants enjoyed serving her family. She once believed that her family took care of these vampires who would have lived like animals without her family’s care. She also believed that these vampires would never, ever hurt them. At least she did until the day the vampire slaves at her family’s home rebelled and murdered her parents, and tried to drain her of her blood.

Twenty year later, Nicole has been told she must step into her father’s role and become the new CEO of Daedalus, the largest researcher and supplier of vampire slaves. She has spent her time learning vampire physiology and helping to create cures for human health issues based upon what she learns from her research. She doesn’t wish to become CEO, she would rather remain in her lab and leave the running of the company to her half brother, Charles, but her father’s Will decrees that his legitimate daughter step up and take the reins of the company.

After the night of her attack, Nicole holds no love for the vampires but she would never intentionally harm a living creature. When the vampires in her lab were executed, on a directive signed by Nicole, she knows that someone is setting her up to take a fall, but she doesn’t know who. Before she is able to figure out who is behind the executions, one of her worst nightmares shows up at her front door. Twenty years prior Nicole watched the vampire Riker kill his mate and their unborn child and there was nothing Nicole could do to stop him.

Now Riker has kidnapped Nicole to use as leverage to get Daedalus to return to them a female vampire taken by poachers. This female is a midwife and she belongs to the rival clan, ShadowSpawn. Vampires have a very low birth rate and high mortality rate for their women and children and the MoonBound clan borrowed Neriya’s services. A midwife of Neriya’s talent is very valuable and ShadowSpawn is blaming her loss on MoonBound. If they don’t return her by the full moon there will be a war between the clans.

While under the “care” of MoonBound, Nicole is learning first hand that everything she has ever been told about the vampires is wrong. It is hard to swallow that the vampires that humans have been enslaving all this time aren’t the beasts she was led to believe and knowing that her family and their company has done these people the most wrong is weighing heavily on her soul. Can she now work against her family’s company to help MoonBound retrieve Neriya before ShadowSpan declares war, and if she does, will anyone trust the help coming from their former enemy?

THOUGHTS:
It took me awhile to get into this story because of the world building. I misinterpreted some of the information on the book jacket. I thought the uprising of the vampires slaves caused the vampires to now be in charge of the world. That is not correct. As a leg up, here is some information: (1) the vampire uprising was not universal. It was only at Nicole’s house and the vampires only killed her parents and their party guests. (2) We never really find out how Nicole survives the attack. (3) Vampires are still used as slaves. (4) Wild Vampires still survive in clans are in hiding from the human hunters and poachers. (5) Daedalus sells vampire slaves but also buys wild vampires for experimenting on as well as black market purchases for unauthorized experiments.

Once my brain caught up with all of the nuances of this world building, I really got into the story and I liked all the characters introduced along with the main characters of Nicole and Riker. I liked that Nicole accepted and acknowledged that her family has done wrong by the vampires and she immediately steps up to do what she can to make things right. She doesn’t try to defend their actions. She’s all “what can I do now to make things right.”

I will say that after 20 years of each blaming the other for Riker’s mate’s death, they seem to have had a reasonable discussion about the day of her death and got over their hatred of each other kind of quickly. This isn’t like the day my husband and I were arguing and the call dropped and we each thought the other was an ass for hanging up. This was 20 years of “you killed her” and it ends quietly with a “sorry I misunderstood.” Terese’s ghost does play into the story as a wedge between Nicole and Riker since Nicole’s family holding her as a slave was one of the reasons for her death and Riker feeling guilty for having feelings for Nicole after everything that happened to Terese. (BTW – That is a figurative ghost, but a literal ghost although this is a paranormal.)

You do need have suspend your disbelief a bit to enjoy the series since there are a few issues that at least didn’t make sense to me. First of all, the vampires clans are threatening war with each other. Since they are in hiding from humans and the poachers and hunters are always stalking them, it seems stupid to have an all out war–literally outside where all the humans will see them and hear them fighting. If anyone is left alive after the fight, the humans will have followed all the noise and be standing by ready to grab survivors. Secondly, each group seems to have created their own underground catacomb system. While ShadowSpan sleeps on furs on dirty floors and somehow manages to create cells for prisoners, MoonBound has embraced a more modern lifestyle including hardwood flooring, comfy furniture, big screen TVs and laptops?? I don’t get great WiFi out on my back deck, vampires in hiding in caves have cable? Hunter paused a news conference so unless vampires are stuck with VHS, that means they have DVRs too? Couldn’t the human just follow the cable connection to their lair or notice a satellite dish out in the middle of the woods? Hey, sometimes you just have to roll with it.

I am happy that I have a copy of Chained by Night, which is Book 2, or I would hate the cliffhangerish ending especially since it appears Larissa Ione will only be writing one of these a year. (UPDATE: Finished Chained by Night and it’s awesome!)

I felt really bad for Riker’s friend Myne. He’s a huge, tough natural-born vampire. He had been captured and kept as a slave at some point in his life and luckily for him, he was not among the male slaves who are normally castrated, but unluckily for him he was defanged. He now had titanium fangs which is great for warfare, but not so much on the monthly feeding from the females. Understandably his dance card is not full since his bite will hurt–badly. (I do have a problem with the male/female feeding issue, if you had a chance to read my Black Dagger Brotherhood post.) But at least in this case, the females need to feed on the new moon and the males need to feed on the full moon. Since there isn’t exactly an even ratio of males to females, no one dies if they don’t feed and get their sexual needs met, but it does make for some post-moon cranky vampires. So back to Myne, at one point he is left to look after Nicole for awhile when Riker needs to leave the compound, and poor, lonely Myne realizes how perfect Nicole would be for him as a mate because she is brave, smart, beautiful and caring of others but since its “Bros over Hoes” in vampireworld, he would never make a move on Riker’s woman. It made me sad that this big guy is so lonely and that even if Riker doesn’t claim her as a mate, Myne would never pursue her himself, no matter how much he likes her, out of respect for his friend. :(

I hope Myne gets a book next, but that will be at least a year away.

It was a slow start but overall a good story and very interesting secondary characters who are introduced and I am looking forward to starting Book 2.

This was my first Larissa Ione story. I know — WTF? right. I guess I will have to look into an audiobook catchup of her Demonica series.

Received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

See more at http://ebookobsessed.com.

[Nadz@Totally Addicted to Reading]

See my review at
http://romancing-the-book.com/2014/05/review-bound-by-night-by-larissa-ione.html

[littleread1]

Ione's Bound By Night follows Nicole, a human who HATES vampires, with good reason, and Riker, a vampire who hates Nicole's family, again, for good reason. So you know there is going to be a lot of back and forth, a lot of tension, and a lot of fighting of feelings before they finally give in.

This story is unique in that not only are vampires not hidden from society, they are actually considered a lower class, not even treated with human compassion by most of the world. They are little more than domesticated animals, that can be used as house servants. Which gave the story a unique twist I hadn't seen before.

However I did find the characters a little flat and predictable. Their "relationship" as it is, can really only be explained by Stockholm Syndrome. As often as it happens in Paranormal Romance, the whole falling in love with your kidnapper thing has to be done right, and in this instance it fell a little short.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read however, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an easy to read PNR.

[Linda]

*I received a free eARC of Bound by Night from Pocket Book via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*

This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews

Bound by Night first got this reaction from me when I finished reading: This. Book.Was. Made. Of. Awesome! That was all I was capable of thinking and feeling and sharing. It has taken me a little while to actually form coherent thoughts, I just fell in love with the characters, the mythology and the completely different take on vampires that were depicted in Bound by Night.

The prologue explains how vampires are slaves in this universe, they are snatched by humans and forced to work for them, taking care of mundane tasks as being a nanny, prepare food or care for the garden. The only thing they get in exchange is room and board. As well as violence. Their human bosses use them in every way - their blood is used to cure disease, help people stay young and generally to control the vampires. They are treated worse than animals, and most of the humans think they have no feelings, and no soul. Not so for little Nicole, who really loves her vampire nanny, and believes the vampires are not treated right. At eight years old, nobody wants to listen to her, though, and when her whole family is murdered in the vampire rebellion, she is sent abroad to be groomed to take over her parents company.

Because of that fateful day, plus another episode when she was privy to vampire violence, Nicole grew up not feeling as friendly towards vampires as she were when she was a child. Little does she know that the vampire who scared her the most - because she saw him bent over her dear nanny with a knife the was she was killed - is on the warpath, and Nicole is the prize he is looking for to save one of his own. Bound by Night has it's share of violence, but it is really easy to understand where the hatred comes from. I especially appreciated having vampires who are not really seen as a threat, even if they evidently are a very big threat. The humans think the vampires only act on instinct, and when Nicole is kidnapped, she is surprised to see how organized and protective they are of each other.

While in captivity, Nicole realizes more and more just how right she was when she was a child, but it seems like there is really nothing she will be able to do to convince people how they should be dealing with vampires through cooperation rather than coercion. And she is in for a lot of difficult twists during Bound by Night, as she understands the vampires better and better, all the while learning that the few people she thought she could count on to have her back would rather stab her in it than help her out.

An emphatic and strong female protagonist doubled with a physically strong, but emotionally broken hero, Bound by Night caught my attention from the very first line of the story to the end. I loved the character development, especially how both Nicole and the vampires had to re-adjust their beliefs when they got to know each other. The mythology is a mixture of native American and something that might be made up, and I was really intrigued and drawn to it. The way the vampire leader communed with spirits, the ancient language he could speak, and the sacrifices he was willing to make for his clan made for a secondary character that is truly worthy of notice as well.

There is plenty of action, both in the bedroom and out, and I enjoyed learning more about how the clans are not working together, but are still able to protect all vampires when the need arises. The scientific parts were well done, too, even if I am no science-geek myself. Nicole explained things very well to her new friends, and as a reader, I was thus able to follow the more complicated things that happened. With plenty of serious things happening throughout Bound by Night, there is still a certain playfulness among the vampires, and I love the characters' sense of humor as well.

If you're a paranormal romance fan, you should definitely run and get your copy of Bound by Night when it is released in ten days! It's well written, the pace is great, because the story slows down then speeds up when needed. The intricate world-building is well done because everything is explained little by little, even if the most important part is shown to the readers during the prologue. I know I have a new favorite series to add to my list now, and I really look forward to seeing where Ms. Ione will take this wonderful new world of hers in the future.

Like all the servants, he'd always kept his eyes downcast - "secured his gaze," as her father called it - in the presence of humans, but not this time. This time, he looked at her the way her dad looked at the Thanksgiving Turkey.

Nicole's therapist was a huge fool if she thought vampires were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. Dr. Bhatia was so fired.

Dear God, what would sex with him be like, if just holding him still gave her muscle strains? And why in the world would her mind go there?

"Can Riker come out to play?" Myne asked. "Depends," Riker narrowed his eyes at his friend. Myne often had a skewed view on what was fun. "What are we playing?" "Poach the Poachers." Cool. Riker liked that game.

He started to pour more vodka into the glass, but screw it. A bottle was glass, right?

[Cocktails and Books]

I’m probably only one of the only people on the planet who haven’t read everything Larissa Ione has written, and after reading Bound by Night, the first in a new series by her, I finally see what I’ve been missing out on. I really enjoyed it. There is some major world building going on and I think that could be hard for some readers. This is a promising start to a new series.

I love the different idea of vampires as slaves and the way that Ms. Ione gives them a foundation with Native American roots and traditions.

I really liked the characters. Nicole and Riker don’t seem like characters who could fall in love but somehow Ms. Ione makes it work. She allows Nicole and Riker to find the good in each other and does it beautifully. They are both strong characters in their own right, and I enjoyed getting to know them.

There is a great cast of secondary characters that support the main characters throughout the whole story.

I highly recommend this story for both fans of Larissa Ione and new fans alike. It’s a great start to a new series and I can’t wait to read the next in the series. I look forward to seeing where she takes the rest of the characters and how this world continues to change and unfold.

Reviewed by Sheri for Cocktails and Books