Bonus Post: Dream of Me (Night World #2)

[vintageromancereader]

Theron, undying creature of the Night World, knew everything about making love. But though he was an incubus, a bringer of carnal dreams to sleeping maids, he had grander ambition. He plotted to step into the mortal world and rule as king.

The beautiful Lucia was imprisoned in a fortress atop a mountain. Her betrothed, Prince Vlad of Wallachia, wanted her purity intact; but when the prince broke his vow, nothing could keep her safe. In the name of vengeance, Lucia would be subjected to Theron's seduction; she would learn all his lips might teach.

A demon of lust and a sheltered princess: each dreamed of what they'd never had. They were about to get everything they wished...and more.

Original Publisher: Dorchester Love Spell
Original Year of Publication: 2004
Page Count: 352

The February 2025 #TBRChallenge is “Previously, in Romance...” If this book choice is a surprise to anyone, you haven't been paying attention, LOL.

I absolutely loved the first book in this duet; unfortunately, this one did not live up to its predecessor's glory. It was always going to be a hard sell for me to make Theron a hero after his behavior in the last book, and the rehabilitation didn't quite hit the mark for me.

As we know from Come to Me, Theron had Samira give Dragosh of Maramures a revolting nightmare about his younger sister, Lucia, in order to break the betrothal between Lucia and Nicholae of Moldavia, in order to pave the way for an alliance between Lucia and Vlad Draco instead. Theron did this as part of a bargain he struck with Vlad: he'd deliver Lucia if Vlad would allow him to inhabit his mortal body for 3 days.

Vlad, of course, reneges on the deal, and it takes Theron six years to come to this realization. Once he does, he decides that he's going to destroy Lucia's purity and innocence, the two qualities that Vlad prizes most in his young bride-to-be. He seeks Lucia out, finding her at an abandoned castle on top of a mountain, surrounded by disinterested women and wearing an amulet that has kept incubi at bay. Once he realizes that the key to his plan is getting Lucia to remove the necklace, it's game on in his mind.

Meanwhile Nyx, the Queen of the Night, has decided that she wants to add Theron to her harem of lovers. Theron doesn't want this - he wants to be mortal, and matter in the world - so he bargains for 30 days to "say goodbye" to his old life, in which time he will really work on his plan to gain control of Vlad's body as he was promised all those years ago.

This story just didn't work for me on a bunch of levels:

1) I didn't really like either main character. Lucia is 20 years old but has been kept ignorant of the world. She knows nothing of sex or reproduction (thus keeping her "pure" for her murderous, rapist fiancé) or life, in general, even though she has a sixth sense and can basically stay lucid while dreaming. She saw Theron briefly when she was 14 and the original nightmare had been given to Dragosh, but even her curiosity about him is limited. Apparently she is completely devoid of hormones as well as being made to feel deeply shameful about various impure thoughts and body parts. She's also very stubborn in her stupidity; the entire book is about her figuring out what sex is and what it's for and where babies come from, which was just hard to swallow coming from an otherwise healthy adult female. Worse yet, Theron hones in on her feelings of shame and plays into them as he works his wiles on her in her dreams, so a lot of the sex play is based on shame, the thrill of shame, and bodies betraying themselves. Ugh. This is not my cup of tea at all.

Theron spends most of his time deep in his fee-fees about being so old and insignificant. I suppose this *gestures to the world in general* time isn't the greatest to be reading about some poor insecure male who craves power above all else. I had zero sympathy for him, and even less when he realizes what a putrid, evil asshole Vlad Draco is and still longs to inhabit his body, because he's such a powerful military ruler who could someday consolidate his power. By the end, I wanted to shake him and tell him to find another body already but the pursuit of Vlad was extra gross, heaping onto all the shameful sex stuff. Double ugh!

Vlad goes without further comment. He is depicting as raping his way across the country, and says some super vile things about what he wants to do to Lucia when he finally bothers to retrieve her.

There's also a couple of mad religious figures (Gabriel, Vlad's opium-addicted brother who is sent to capture Theron in a jug; Theresa, the half-mad ancient nun who was charged with Lucia's education) that don't add much except distraction.

2) The magic of the world no longer makes sense. Theron is supposed to be a being who has no heart, no soul, and no feelings, yet somehow he nurses this grudge against Vlad and falls in love with Lucia, thus growing a soul and making the deus ex machina ending (where he takes over Vlad's body forcibly, which should've killed him instantly but doesn't) possible. This was the worldbuilding falling around its ears in service of this plot, which was really disappointing.

3) All of the sex stuff is rapey and/or cringeworthy, both in "real life" and Lucia's dreams. If I never hear the words "crotch monster" again, it will be too soon.

4) The epilogue brings us the birth of Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula the vampire, so does that really count as an HEA? 🤔

This was readable, but not convincing, especially when read in such close proximity with the first book. A disappointment, for sure, but not enough to put me off this author's work.

⭐⭐

Comments

[vintageromancereader]

Yeah, by the time I made it far enough into the book to discover this, I was more than ready to DNF (and probably would have if this wasn't a challenge book). There is a lot of unfortunate cringey/rapey stuff even before the crotch monster arises (heh) that I wouldn't bother subjecting myself to it just for WTAF vibes.