When I held Night’s Cold Kiss in my hands for the first time I was immediately impressed. The book looks impressive and when I started to skim through it I discovered the Glossary at the end. I thought wow that really looks like some serious world-building and the book didn’t disappoint in that department. But let’s start at the beginning.

We are thrown in the middle of a world full of paranormal creatures living in a more or less peaceful coexistence with the human population. There are organisations on both sites to keep an eye on the fragile peace and to punish those who break the line. The biggest problem are the Draniacs, vampires who turned crazy after feeling the “death rush” while draining someone completely. They turn into mindless killing machines who go rampant on a killing spree. But there is a group of humans who protect us from this threat- the Venators and our heroine is one of them.

Antoinette is a kick ass heroine with some baggage of her own. Her mother was killed by a necrodreniac who made the small Antoinette watch her mother die a slow and painful death. No wonder Antoinette is now full of prejudices and hates vampires in general with all her might. Not only this makes her into the best Venator out there and her goal is to kill as many of those vampires as she can.  Antoinette is stubborn as hell and at some points she shows a rather unbecoming childish streak. But she is also an unbelievably strong woman ,compassionate for those she loves and no matter what she wants to keep the rest of her family together. For outsiders she seems to be untouchable. Her attitude shows and she can’t hide her disdain for the vampire population in general. When she meets Christian and Victor she doesn’t seem to be able to stop herself from judging them. With time she discovers her missjudgment but old habbits die hard.

Christian is a mysterious and very old vampire. He has big secrets in  his past but all in all he is a nice guy. He learned to be in control of himself and Antoinette seems to shortcircuit that ability. He tries to keep his attraction for her in check but I have to say he’s not doing such a good job. I was really intrigued by this character at first but unfortunately in the middle of the story his character was pushed a bit into the background. I would have loved to read more about him.

And then we have Victor- he’s Christian’s best friend but nothing like the brooding hero. He’s a wonderful funny and witty character but for my taste his description was a bit too androgynous to be attractive. But I loved him nonetheles. His way to banter with Antoinette gave this book a wonderful funny side, something to light up your mood between all those fights and bloodshed. He also has that wonderful beast of a dog, Cerebrus and I just loved that one too.

The sidecast in general was very intriguing and variying. Each and every single character had a distinct feel to them- this made Night’s Cold Kiss extra vibrant for me. I love to see the different facets and even more like the compulsion to discover their own secret agenda. That’s always  the most fun for me in one of those novels full of political intrigues. One of the characters I loved the most is Kavendish the mysterious butler. Very entertaining character.

Again I have to say I thought the end was a bit too easy and the last scene threw me off even more. I would have never seen that coming but it makes me even more curious for book 2, Death’s Sweet Embrace.

An urban fantasy novel with an awesome world-building, captivating characters and a fast paced story. Night’s Cold Kiss is urban fantasy at its best and it even has a bit of romance to sweeten the deal. I can’t wait to read more.