For All Eternity

Written more in the vein of Anne Rice's well-known vampire series than the traditional vampire romance (if such a thing exists), this second book in Linda Lael Miller's vampire quartet takes place in a setting inhabited by angels, warlocks, vampires, and mortals, all very literally at each others' throats.

Powerful vampire Maeve Tremayne revels in her immortality. Free to travel at will through time and place, she is restricted only by the rising of the sun. Just and honest, she takes nourishment only from the cruelest members of mortal society, those who are "truly evil, not just misguided," except when she eases the journey of the dying by offering them a final moment of ecstasy and release from pain. During one of these missions of mercy to the dying soldiers in a Civil War field hospital, she meets Dr. Calder Holbrook. Calder has heard the tales of a beautiful angel who roams the battlefield and takes the dying to their rest, but he believed she was only a morphine-fueled dream of men in pain until he sees her for himself. Maeve tries to put the mortal doctor out of her mind. Her brother loved a mortal and gave up his immortality for her, condemning himself to an eventual human death; she refuses to follow his example. Her attraction to Calder is too strong, however, and she finds herself drawn back to his time--and eventually into his arms. Unfortunately, complications arise that threaten the growing relationship between Maeve and Calder. Maeve finds herself the reluctant champion of her kind when she is called upon to track down and destroy the mad vampire queen, Lisette, whose depravity threatens to bring down the wrath of the warrior angels on all immortals--vampires and warlocks alike. Maeve must strike an alliance with the enemy warlocks for their mutual protection and garner their help for her battle with Lisette. Her love for Calder makes her vulnerable, however, and in her fear that Lisette might strike at her through him, she makes him a virtual prisoner. Calder, who has demons of his own past to battle, chafes at Maeve's protectiveness, which threatens to drive a wedge between them.

Linda Lael Miller's For All Eternity succeeds as an intriguing story on two levels, both as a sensual, otherworldly romance and as an intense and dramatic battle of wits between two powerful and vastly different creatures of the night.