Aileen has a few rules for her life. Do her job and go home safe. Keep the supernatural world away from her human family. Stay off the vampire radar. And, above all, don’t get involved in spook politics.
But when Liam comes back into town bringing a mystery that threatens the life she’s built, she finds every closely guarded rule flying out the window as she sinks ever deeper into the supernatural world.
Ultimately, it may be the people she loves the most who pay the price in the high-stakes game that vampires call life.

‘Midnight’s Emissary‘ is the second book in the Urban Fantasy series featuring Aileen Travers, an Army vet turned vampire against her will and who is now trying to find her place in the secret and complex world of the supernaturals who inhabit Columbus, Ohio. 

i enjoyed the first book, ‘Shadow’s Messenger‘ enough to want to follow the series to find out what Aileen has to do to survive. I liked that Aileen isn’t the typical Urban Fantasy heroine. She doesn’t carry a sword, wear leather, or practice mixed martial arts. She’s a vampire but a very weak one and, as she refuses to take blood from the source, she’s not getting any stronger. She’s motivated by a stubborn determination to retain as much personal freedom as she can – something that defies the requirement placed on all newly turned vampires to spend a hundred years in the service of a vampire clan. The downsides of independence are ignorance, no one is teaching her the things she’d learn in a clan and vulnerability, she’s a visible unprotected target for powerful supernaturals of all kinds.

In ‘Midnight’s Emissary‘, Aileen finds herself with a contract to work for the vampires who she has been trying to avoid which unexpectedly brings her face to face with the previously unknown vampire who sired and then left her for dead and who is now a candidate to become a Grand Poobah of the vampires.

The plot is interesting, although the pace is a little slow. I didn’t mind that as it’s really Aileen who keeps me reading. I’m fascinated by her approach to life (and afterlife). She describes herself as a Millenial and that may explain some of her expectations. I struggle to find a word that nails Aileen’s attitude. Not so much snark as smirk, except it’s a lazy, drawly smirk. A sort of contempt for how badly the world is set up and how many unreasonable but unavoidable things she is asked to do. Perhaps an oxymoron?: long-suffering impatience?” Whatever it is, her attitude amuses me and gives a fresh feel to an otherwise familiar Urban Fantasy set-up.

I’m going to stick with this series. It’s entertaining and stays relatively light despite all the intrigue and violence. ‘Moonlight’s Ambassador‘ is next on my list.

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Part of my enjoyment of this series comes from Natasha Soudek’s narration.

Here’s the biography that Tantor Audio gives for her.