Just finished the first 3 of LJ Smith’s Night World series. The 3 stories were rolled into one book, making the book look kind of bulky and heavyish.
LJ Smith’s fine. There’s just one thing I can comment about her stories. Her villains are just not that … villainous. I have read a lot of other authors and I’ve read about villains who are mercilless and have no qualms at giving the heros/heroines a really difficult time. LJ Smith’s villains on the other hand are either not that evil, or are just not that destructive, or probably gives up so easily. Of course, if I were a hero in a story, I would want the story I am to be in to be written by LJ Smith. That way, I’d have smoother sailing and don’t have to go using the best I could to survive and live through the end of the story. And LJSmith’s story endings are always mushy happy ones. If it were not so blatantly trite, she might well have ended her stories with “… and they lived happily ever after.” But of course I like happy endings.
Secret Vampires
This centers on a petite but very energetic, bouncy, and bouyant girl called Poppy. She suddenly almost slowed down to a halt when the doctors found her to be stricken with a very fatal form of cancer. She has a very close friend since childhood by the name of James who turns it to be a born vampire. Vampires in LJ Smith’s world by the way are either born or made and can grow old until such time when they decide to stop getting old. She also has a twin brother, Phillip, who is very protective of her. He first and foremost wants to protect her from James.
As the cancer is advanced and there’s no hope for Poppy because even James’ witch friends wouldn’t want to violate their night world rules by helping heal humans, he was left with only one option. And that is to break another night world rule…secretly turn her into a vampire, with the help of Poppy’s twin brother. Her brother doesn’t want to loss her to death, but is also repulsed at the thought of her sister living on blood. He finally gives in and thought it better to know that she is alive somewhere than completely lossing her and never seeing her again.
Then of course, there’s the villain, James’ cousin, Ash, who, before he appears, LJ SMith builts up as the villain and so you would anticipate some cold blooded conscience-less vampire to ruin all of James, Poppy and Phillip’s work and plans. Would he inform the elders of this violation? The punishment would be death to James, Poppy, and Phillip.
Daughters of Darkness
In this story, Ash’s sisters, Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade, find themselves in a remote farm after escaping from an island bounded by centuries-old night world rules. They thought they would live happily ever after here – living on wild animals blood and be free to do and be what they want to be. But of course the long arm of the Night World catches up with them in the form of a zealous vampire, and of course, their brother Ash.
But things are to become even more complicated. A neighbor, Mary-Lynette Carter and her brother comes barging into their lives. Jade falls in love with Mary-Lynette’s brother. Ash, who is supposed to either bring her sisters back to Night World territory or kill them, finds out that Mary-Lynette is his soul-mate. Villainy, which Ash has vacated after knowing Mary-Lynette, is provided by a were-wolf in this story.
Spellbinder
Here, we find two rebel witches, Thea and Blaise Harman. Actually, it’s Blaise that is the pain here. Since they are ‘sisters’, Thea had opted to be with Blaise no matter what the cost. Expulsion from schools are a normal routine with them.
Thea is always on the lookout for Blaise’s next perversion and always would attempt to thwart it. In her efforts to protect Blaise from herself, she sometimes makes erroneous judgements and in this story, she accidentally unleashes an angry witch spirit bent on revenge.
Thea finds a soul-mate her who is human. The circumstance they are in would test their elders patience at their rebellious-ness. Death is the penalty for breaking Night World laws.
With more than a hundred raving reviews at amazon, Night World is cool for all ages, especially if you like twilight and the genre that involves the darker side of life.