Dead After Dark

De: Sherrilyn Kenyon, J. R. Ward, Susan Squires, Dianna Love

Narrado por: Stephen R. Thorne

"Shadow of the Moon" by Sherrilyn Kenyon: Angelia has fought her entire life to make herself strong. Now, with her patria under fire, she has to protect her people from Fury and his werewolf clan. Vowing to bring him to justice, Angelia sets out alone...until the hunter becomes the hunted, and the only way for her to survive is to trust the very wolf she's sworn to kill.

"The Story of Son" by J. R. Ward: Claire Stroughton is a beautiful lawyer who would rather spend the night with a legal brief than the man of her dreams. Then a routine client meeting turns dangerous - and deeply sensual - when she is held captive by a gorgeous man with an unworldly hunger....

"Beyond the Night" by Susan Squires: When Drew Carlowe returns home to win back a lost love, he is quick to dismiss rumors that his estate is haunted by a stunning young ghost...until one passionate encounter leaves him mystified - and aching for more.

"Midnight Kiss Goodbye" by Dianna Love: Trey McCree possesses an insatiable desire for Sasha Armand - and supernatural powers that could endanger her life as a human. But when they team up to stop an evil warlord, Trey discovers that Sasha can do way more than drive men wild.....

©“Shadow of the Moon” copyright 2008 by Sherrilyn Kenyon; “The Story of Son” copyright 2008 by Jessica Bird; “Beyond the Night” copyright 2008 by Susan Squires; “Midnight Kiss Goodbye” copyright 2008 by Dianna Love Snell (P)2019 Tantor

Nice quick read!

All short stories were well performed. A good set of steamy stories! A definite recommend.

No real story

Continuous high school, continuous childish crush with very little actual story line, I really tried to enjoy the book but gave up waiting for something beside crush talk.

Needs Jim Frangione

After you have heard J.R. Ward read by Jim Frangione there just aren't any substitutes. They were good, but they could have been great if they would have been read by Jim Frangione.

Different yet the same

Narration was good.
I’m guessing the goal for each author was to create a short story involving vampires and sex as that’s what each story was about. They were all live stories, they were each different but similar with the similar themes so it felt more like listening to the story but being told a bit differently each time. Although I will give kudos to the story with the locked up vamp virgin, that was different enough (and good) to be a stand alone.

Dead After Dark was more like Dead on Arrival

These were mostly haphazard stories thrown together just enough to get to the supernatural love story.
It felt like they connected to established series, leaving me lost among the name drops and backstories.

Shadow of the Moon by Sherrilyn Kenyon ⭐️
Nothing but repetition of her primal fear or lust, and info dumps about shifter groups and time traveling adversaries. Clearly tied to a series where every girl is kidnapped, victimized, and ultimately mated to alpha beefcakes. Angelia’s alleged warrior status is mere lip service as she never accomplishes anything .

The Story of Son by J.R. Ward ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was surprised to have a smart FMC lawyer and a noble vampire, given the author’s Black Dagger love for frat-bro vampire doms. Given his imprisonment since age 12, there was a teensy bit of “are you trying to seduce me Mrs. Robinson” yeesh, but this was my favorite of the four shorts. It was also the one that best stands alone.

Beyond the Night by Susan Squires ⭐️⭐️
The flipped script of her being a 900 year old supernatural and him being human only got me so far.
This ended up being a vanilla, and predictable, romance.

Midnight Kiss Goodbye by Dianna Love ⭐️
The 80s called and wants its cliches back. When the short starts with him protecting her from leering gang members, I know it’s going to be one of those stories. With all the cryptic references to his and her supernatural traits and tribes, there’s got to be a series… only this was such a mess that I have no desire to find it and figure out what the samhill they were talking about.

The most intimate exchange of bodily fluids.

I really enjoy paranormal and urban fantasy stories and was hoping to find inspiration for new authors to follow when I purchased this book during an Audible sale, but to my great frustration many of the female authors in this genre turn it into shallow Dear Penthouse scenarios that take about half an hour for the stupendously gorgeous characters to realize that in addition to their Immense Sexual Attraction they have also found Twue Wuv. I ended up setting my audio book player to a fast speed and hitting the jump forward 1 minute button regularly because the character's overflowing libidos kept smothering the plot. I don't mind love scenes or characters being attracted to each other, in fact I like to have those scenarios thrown in every now and then, but when getting to and then repeating the lusting and sex scenes over and over is apparently the entire point of the story, not so much. It just gets tedious. Honestly, these short stories had the potential to be really good. There were actual story ideas with good mysteries to solve and I liked most of the endings. But WHY did every one of them have to be reduced within a few pages to a plot contrivance with no point other than: force gorgeous protective guy to spend time with gorgeous independent woman so they could verbally spar for five minutes before hopping repeatedly into bed? WHY did the authors feel the need to spend more time telling us every detail about what each uber sexy person was wearing (really, I don't need to know the color of the buckles on their boots or how much lace is on their panties) instead of building the plot? WHY must every character be reduced to "normally smart but turns into a shallow dolt overruled by lust whenever co-star walks on stage?" Even though I started fast-forwarding on a pretty regular basis after a while, I still got immensely tired of hearing how often 'cores' and 'lady parts' got tingly and damp.