The son of the one and only Casanova is responsible for the vampire bachelor party gone wild. Jack is known for the parties full of Blissky and women that would make any man crazy. The synthetic blood used to make the Blissky comes from the international company Jack works for as a top security investigator. It could be the Blissky or the all night partying, but when Officer Lara Boucher walks in on the scene, Jack is unable to work his usual
vampire tricks to free himself of the troubles she brings his way.
Lara is not a typical cop, and it is her ambition that
sniffs something wrong in the air of this bachelor party. She knows there is more to the incredibly handsome man trying to shoo her away, and she's determined to find out what it is.
Women begin to disappear from multiple states and colleges with the same physical MO, as well as the identical problem of no one realizing they didn’t leave of their own free will. Jack and Lara must team up to investigate this series of kidnappings because the culprit is undoubtedly a
vampire. Lara doesn’t know vampires even exist, but as her relationship with Jack develops, she begins to recognize things about him that
cannot be human.
The true test comes when Lara becomes the bait for the FBI’s planned capture of the culprit. Jack knows Lara will be long gone before anyone is the wiser, and
that she will probably end up dead. The culprit has thus far proven himself incredibly wily, and neither the wolves nor the vampires have been able to find the compound
where he takes his victims. For Lara’s sake, they had better step up their investigative skills
- her life will soon be forfeit if the bloodthirsty maniacs responsible for her capture realize who she is.
In terms of vampire novels, Secret Life of a Vampire (Love at Stake, Book 6) is a far cry from some well-known authors’ novels. Anne Rice is obviously the reigning queen of vampire lore
of the past several decades, but up-and-comers like Keri Arthur and Jeaniene Frost are still leagues ahead
of this with their works.
Spark’s creativity with vampiric traits is often far from the norm, which for any author’s personal work is fine,
but for the reader can be sometimes difficult to buy into. One of the extremes is teleporting capabilities from one spot to another all the way across the world instantaneously. Most authors don’t propose such capabilities for
vampires since they are not Harry Potter, but to each his or her own.
The characters are perhaps the most difficult to get around: they simply are not that likeable. When protagonists are more annoying and boring than remarkable and alluring, the book encounters a serious problem from the get-go. For all the hinted promises and possible directions attached to a character
who is the son of the actual Casanova, the disappointment is palpable.
Sparks, for all intents and purposes, is a great writer, although the identified flaws make for a novel not worthy of the
New York Times bestselling author title she holds. Secret Life of a Vampire (Love at Stake, Book 6) is a passable novel to fill the time when nothing better is at hand, but one looks with hope towards the next novel Sparks produces and the talent she obviously possesses.