The Vampire Who Loved me – Teresa Medeiros

I’ve been curious about this book ever since I finished After Midnight. There’s something awfully romantic in a Vampire desperately trying to recuperate his soul and become a human again.

Julian Kane is back in town.

Once, as a girl of seventeen, beautiful, headstrong Portia Cabot saved the cursed life of the dashing vampire Julian Kane-who marked her forever, then left to go in search of his soul. He returns five years later to find the enchanting young girl he left behind grown into a bewitching woman with a woman's heart . . . and a woman's desires.

Portia quickly discovers that Julian's seductive and forbidden kiss can still make her crave the night . . . and his touch. But the Julian who has returned to London is not the vampire she remembers. His fruitless pursuit of his stolen mortality has reduced him to drunken debauchery. And a recent spate of murders makes Portia fear that the man she has always adored may truly be a monster.

Julian knows he must drive Portia away-but his passion and hunger for her grow more irresistible every time they touch. For years he has fought the temptation to embrace his dark gifts, never realizing that Portia's love may give him the most dangerous gift of all . . . a reason to live.

I did like Julian a lot more than I liked Portia.
After hearing Julian is back in London and not believing he is behind the recent murders of young women by vampires, Portia goes looking for the love of her youth to warn him that Adrian, his brother, is looking for him. She find a rake and a gambler who doesn’t care about what may happen to him but agrees to protect her reputation and leave before they are found together. He never tells her whether he is the one committing those awful murders or not.

With Adrian Portia concocts a scheme to find the vampire responsible for those murders and serves as bait. She fins a she vampire (vampiress(?)) who is also Julian’s lover and the holder of his immortal soul. Now what I had problems with was that Portia kept changing her mind whether she loved him or not, if it was because he could be a murderer or because he had a lover, or because he hadn’t killed the vampire to recover his soul… she just sounded a bit childish to me. Julian seemed a lot more interesting and complex as a character who has been trying to stay away from the woman he loves because he feels he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t have the courage to kill the vampire who holds his soul because she has saved his life. They spend much of the book without being honest with each other and that also helped create some misunderstandings regarding Julian’s intentions. Together they will have to face not only their family but also a group of vampires before Julian can get his soul back.

This book is constantly referring to situations of After Midnight and it might not be an easy read if you haven’t read the first book.

Grade: B