Category: Horror Publisher: Night to Dawn
ISBN-10: 0982679505
Type: Fiction
Pages: 198
Copyright: April 2010
ISBN-13: 9780982679500
A female vampire and her mortal male lover search for a horrible demon that grows stronger with every person it kills. Before the vampire and her lover can kill the demon, they must fight a pack of werewolves guarding the devil creature.
Nessa, a beautiful 400 year-old vampire, entices Frank, a 35-year-old architect, to come to her table in an upscale bar in Manhattan. Nessa wants to make love with Frank, not take his blood. A heated relationship develops without Frank knowing that his lover is a vampire.
Several weeks later, Nessa and Frank are taking a walk on a spring night when two werewolves attack them. Though petite, Nessa is a powerful vampire and quickly kills both werewolves. Frank is grateful to survive the atrack, but he is horrified to learn his lover is a vampire.
Nessa convinces Frank to come back to her apartment where she explains how she became a vampire. Frank learns that Nessa is trying to find and kill a soul-eating demon, gaurded by werewolves. Frank decides that his love for Nessa is greater than his misgivings about what she is and the dangers he faces if he stays with her.
Excerpt
“What am I to you?” I asked.
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Am I some mortal with whom you’ve decided to have a fling?”
Nessa blinked, hesitating before she responded. “At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeking. It's been a long time since I've had an intimate relationship with a man. My few romantic relationships with mortals did not end well. Even when they said they accepted I was immortal, it always became difficult when they aged and I didn’t. It was heartbreaking for me to stand over my lover's grave mourning alone at night. I have business contacts, but I live a solitary life. I was lonely, and I sought an interesting and attractive man and decided to let events take their own course.” She paused, lowered her eyes, and remained that way for a long time. Then her gaze sought mine.
“It was never my intention to fall in love with you.”
“Love? What we've shared is lust. You haven't expressed feelings, at least verbally,” I said. “From the moment we met, events never took a natural course. You were the sexual aggressor controlling me from the start.”
“You need to take responsibility for your actions.” Her tone stabbed me like a sharp saber. “You made a choice when you responded to my smile and sat beside me. Whatever responses I evoked are part of your nature. My behavior was provocative, but I never apologize for whom I am. You’re an adult. You know the risks you take when you meet a stranger in a bar. Especially when she tells you she's a vampire.”
Her eyes, flat and hard, presented a side of her that I hadn't seen before.
I took a deep breath and met the measure of her gaze.
Nessa stood there, hands on her hips, staring defiantly at me. Now that I saw beyond her beauty, I could recognize her strength in living a life she never chose. I stood at a crossroad few men ever experienced. What I said next could decide the rest of my life. “I love you, but I have no idea how we can become more than lovers.”
“It begins by accepting each other as we are,” she said. “That is no small task in any relationship, but not an insurmountable one in ours.”
“For us to be together involves more than my accepting what you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“You live in a dangerous world. Less than an hour ago, two werewolves attacked us. Then you tell me they were sent by a demon that you are trying to kill. This is something out of a horror movie, so it’s difficult for me to accept.” I shook my head, looking up at Nessa.
She stood there lips pursed, staring at me. “I can't deny that my life is dangerous at the present time. These are unusual circumstances. Since the end of the second world war I have lived in relative tranquility.” She sighed, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “I would understand if you said this is too much for you. Your life might be at risk by being with me.”
Having a vampire lover who is fighting werewolves and a demon is something out of a Stephen King novel.
“If you love me, I can offer you a way to spend eternity with me. You would be a formidable foe for anyone.”
I blinked, digesting what she had just said. She was playing to my fascination with eternal life. I turned and walked to the living room window, watching the city below, wondering what it would be like to see the centuries go by and witness a future I wouldn't naturally know. Closing my eyes, I imagined the world to come, where we would always be together. But I would never give up my humanity to become a vampire. I walked back to Nessa and took her hands in mine
“I need to think about what you offered. Too much has happened in one evening for me to make such a quick decision.” What I didn't say was that I needed more time to consider what it meant to commit myself to a vampire. I couldn't base my decision solely on my passion for her.
Professional Reviews
Review of Unholy Embrace by Neil Benson by Aymee - Bitten by Books
Frank Thornton never believed in the supernatural until the night he metNessa. From that night on, the night she confessed to being a vampire, his life ceased to be simple. Between nights of exotic sex, battles with werewolves, and an epic battle for survival, they learn more and more about one another and find that true love can cross all barriers.
Despite the fact that both Frank and Nessa are your average kind of characters, the kind that can be found in nearly any vampire novel – he’s the disbeliever, she’s the been-there-seen-that vampiress – they both possess strong character and an intriguing story. Frank is an honest and down-to-earth kind of guy with a protective streak that very well may get him killed before long. He’s willing and practically able to do anything and everything needed to keep her by his side, vampire or not. He’s steadfast and completely, totally smitten with her.
She’s got a history longer than that of the United States and yet she not only brings Frank home but also decides she wants – and needs – to keep him around for the long term. She can be cold and aloof when she needs to be but,
when it comes to Frank, she’s all his. Together, they make a deadly team,fighting werewolves, demons, and a psychotic, spurned vampire that’s been haunting Nessa for centuries. And when they’re alone, they explode with passion and desire so hot they nearly combust.
In today’s world, you never quite know what’s lurking in the shadows. Just ask Frank Thornton. He started out as an architect to the rich and quickly went from being happily oblivious to fighting a variety of the denizens of the night.
However, just so long as he’s fighting alongside his girlfriend, the vampire Nessa, he’s determined to save the world. Unholy Embrace is an enjoyable story that is sure to engage and satisfy any lover of vampire fiction.
Review of Unholy Embrace by Trish Martin at Horrornews.net
Human Frank Thornton and vampire Nessa Harcanu hold hands as they walk together at night in Manhattan. He knows his beloved is a centuries old vampire, but has not witnessed at all what that means until this evening. Werewolves attack them, but Nessa overpowers them; shaking Frank with her abilities.
They met three weeks earlier with both attracted at first sight. Now he needs to know why the assault. Nessa honestly thinks a serial killing demon she hunts sent the horde. He thinks about leaving her, but cannot as he loves her though he wonders if she is using her vampiric enchantress skills to manipulate his desires. Still Frank tells her he cannot convert, but wants to be with her. She explains the demon is not her worst nightmare. Her sire, who she killed back in 1627 after he converted her and sucked dry her husband, left behind a raging predator the “widow” Narice who wants to destroy her for killing the Master; Frank is her Achilles Heel.
This is an exhilarating urban fantasy filled with demons, werewolves and vampires; oh, my! Frank is a terrific human who feels as if he fell through the rabbit hole when he fell in love while Nessa is an honest vampiress who tells him the truth. Although there is too much going on with the lead couple as the demon hunters and as the Narice hunted, sub-genre fans will enjoy this tale of blood and romance flowing on the streets of Manhattan.
Harriet Klausner
Review of Unholy Embrace by Neil Benson - BK Walker Books
"A popular storyline lately has been the tale of the mortal/vampire love story and the majority of them have ended up writing the male as a Vampire and the female as the lovestruck mortal. One thing that I really liked in Neil Benson's book is that he decided to use gender reversed roles and make the male the lovestruck mortal and the female the Vampire. Having it this way, was a nice change for once.
The story starts when Frank and Nessa are out on a date and are attacked by Werewolves, the attack causes Nessa to extract her fangs and go all-vampirey , something that Frank hasn't really experienced before. From then on , we are transported back to the beginning -where they first met and how their relationship started and of course how they reached the point in the story.
What follows is Nessa explaining and opening her 400yr old heart to Frank and telling her story on how she became a Vampire starting in Hungary all the way to her travels via Vienna and Paris to the Present time in New York. We read as the Werewolves attacks are just the beginning as Nessa has been on the run nearly 400 years and has been tracked by Narice - the vampire lover of the Vampire who turned Nessa and in return Nessa Killed out of vengeance.
When Frank realizes the consequences and danger of being with Nessa , can he stand strong and embrace the unholiness of being with a Vampire or will he take the white feather coward option out and leave Nessa to follow a path of a normal life ?
An excellent story that shows readers in a paranormal and supernatural way that no matter what happens and how terrifying obstacles can be - love between not only mortals but mortals and supernaturals can stick together and overcome anything."
After Satan negotiates a pact with God and unleashes his army of demons, a secret sect battles a diabolical prophecy that threatens humanity.
Release Date: November 21, 2018
WEIRD RHODY is a short story collection featuring five strange tales all set in Rhode Island and written by five Rhode Island authors. The anthology is a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, the Ocean State's famed author of pulp horror.
