Midnight Desire by Emma Holly

This book is a compilation of an earlier work by Emma Holly called "Catching Midnight" and a short story/novella called "Luisa's Desire". Both tell tales of creatures called Upyr, something like a mix of vampires and werewolves.

"Catching Midnight" tells the story of Gillian, a human girl who is orphaned by the Black Plague. When her mother and young brother are dying of the pestilence, her mother urges her to flee to the forest from London. Gillian does so, and the effort exhausts her. Shortly after arriving at the forest, she falls asleep, and when she wakes up, she hears two people arguing over her, a man and a woman.

The man is named Auriclus, and the woman Nim Wei. Both are Upyr, and both wish to convert her into one of their followers. Nim Wei promises her learning, but Auriclus says she will find it harder to be a good person should she choose Nim Wei. With him, she will have a different life entirely, but she can be good as she chooses. Gillian chooses Auriclus, and Nim Wei says she will be unhappy, as she will always hunger for learning.

Auriclus takes her into the far north, and changes her into a Upyr, and leaves her with a group of Wolf-bonded Upyr. But though their leader truly loves her, Gillian feels nothing for him, and when he seems to be pressing her to bond with a wolf and completely join with him, she decides to flee instead, leaving the group forever.

She flees back southward and eventually finds herself sharing a nest with falcon chicks, one of whom she bonds with. That falcon is caught and tamed by a man named Aimery Fitz Clare, a nobleman and avid Falconer. Gillian, too, finds herself charmed by Aimery, but he has problems of his own at home.

His brother, Edward, married a young woman raised on a diet of minstrel tales of true lovers who could not be together. On the day of their wedding, she fell in love, not with her husband, but Aimery, his brother. She is convinced that Aimery feels the same about her as she does about him, but he cannot stand her. She is convinced that only Aimery's innate chivalry keeps him from declaring his love for her. Edward, meanwhile, realizes it, and is cool to his brother. Edward feels cool to his brother also because he felt afraid on the field of battle, whereas Aimery came back covered in glory... but also scarred, with scars that destroyed his former beauty.

Aimery stays, not so much for his brother or his brother's bride, but for their eldest son, Robin, who seems to be ignored by both parents, and needs someone to look up to. Gillian inadvertantly adds to the chaos at Aimery's home when she goes snooping around and inadvertantly summons Nim Wei to the castle.

But as Gillian struggles with Nim Wei, whose designs are only slightly put off by Gillian's innate mental powers, Aimery must deal with his brother and his brother's wife while trying to keep his relationship with Gillian secret. But when Aimery is poisoned, can she save him by turning him into an Upyr like herself? And how can she do that when Auriclus is the only one who knows how to do so?

The second, much shorter story, concerns Luisa, an Upyr from Florence, who has come to Tibet to find out if she will be able to survive without ingesting blood. The idea and the truth of what she is intrigues the abbot of the monastery, Geshe Rimpoche, and he assigns his best student and close friend, Martin, a half-European Tibetan, to guide and help her along her path.

Martin is in training to be a celibate monk, but he is incredibly attracted to Luisa. Strangely enough, Geshe Rimpoche doesn't want to separate them when he becomes aware of this fact. He instead seems determined to throw them even closer together. But as Luisa begins falling for her mentor, will she be able to gain her greatest desire, or will a new desire for Martin supplant her desire not to drink blood?

I had read the first book, Catching Midnight, before, and enjoyed it greatly. Gillian starts off as a child, but since when a human is turned into an Upyr, they become their perfect age, she is not a child for very long in the story. But then, even if she is mentally and emotionally still a child after becoming an Upyr, an unknown amount of time passes before she grows up enough to decide to leave the pack.

I liked reading how she and Aimery fall in love. Their first encounters are more about sex and desire, and their love grows slowly, but it is exciting to read every time I re-read that part of the story. This is also true for the Luisa/Martin part of the story as well. Emma Holly is very good at writing sex, and while these books aren't as explicit as some of the others she writes, the writing definitely has an intensity that will keep you sweating as you read.

I really enjoyed reading the juxtaposition of the stories. Because they were put together, and the process of becoming an Upyr explained in the first, the second could be much more concentrated. But both delight and arouse the senses. For those enjoying their romance with much more heat, you'll be delighted to read Emma Holly. Some of her books may come off like soft porn for the sex parts, but the romance keeps up with the sex, and you'll be thrilled as well as titillated.