In A Darker Dream Ms Ashley takes us once again into the world of vampires she has created.

This time the woman who finds herself living with a vampire is Rhianna McLeod.  Sold to Rayven by her father she is taken into his home and given everything she could ever want…an education, fine clothes, food…everything but the company and touch of the man who has taken her in.

Rayven did not know why he felt the compulsion to buy Rhianna when her father placed her for sale in the local tavern.  Perhaps it was merely because he did not want to see her exposed before the men in the tavern as her father instructed.

Whatever the reason, Rhianna was now his and the solitary man was determined that she remain at arms length for her own safety.

Forever at a distance Rhianna could not help but feel gratitude for the man who had taken her in and as the years passed her feelings grew into love and a passion that matched that of Rayven.

Rayven has brought women to his castle before.  He has cared for them as he does Rhianna but they were brought to the castle for the sole purpose of providing him with the nourishing blood that he needs to survive.  Rhianna is different and for the first time he finds himself craving not blood but the chance to be mortal again and have the opportunity of a life with the young woman he has grown to love with a passion that could destroy them both.

Knowing that what he wishes is impossible and unable to tell Rhianna his secret Rayven sends her away to Paris where she remains for four years until the death of her father brings her back to the village.

Although the locals tell her that the castle is deserted Rhianna cannot resist taking the opportunity to visit it and see if the gardens she tended during her years there have survived.  She finds that most of them have not and more surprisingly that Rayven is not absent from his home but very much still in residence, and still keeping her at arms length.

But when she realises that she no longer has a place in the village she is happy to move back into the castle and soon finds a place in Rayven’s home and in his arms.

Her family are not happy about her decision but she cannot turn back now and soon she and Rayven are battling against the odds to build some sort of a life together.  But what sort of life can they have when she is a mortal and he a vampire who cannot go out in the light of day?

Once again Amanda Ashley delivers one of the classic vampire romance novels that she is famous for.  Passionately intense and heart-stoppingly tender this novel has everything that a vampire novel should have – the tortured hero and the heroine brave enough to put her fears aside and love him for the man he was and subdue the monster within.
 

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Also by Amanda Ashley - Embrace the Night, Sunlight Moonlight, Shades of Gray and Deeper than the Night.

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