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The Nightlife Las Vegas

Book Review of Travis Luedke’s The Nightlife: Las Vegas

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I recently read Travis Luedke’s The Nightlife: New York, so when I saw the sequel (Las Vegas) come up free on the KDP list I was all about grabbing it.

Description from Goodreads:
Vampires, Aaron Pilan and his master Michelle, live by one rule — no bloodslaves. EVER. Aaron breaks that rule when he meets Anastasia. All Anastasia wants is to be loved and cherished, but the predatory men she’s attracted to bring her only pain and abuse. Escaping one train-wreck relationship for another, she finds happiness with Aaron and Michelle as a bloodslave, a ‘pet’.

When Aaron uses his telepathy to win thousands at the gambling tables, he attracts the deadly attention of the Colombian Cartel and Aaron and Michelle are ‘disappeared’. Addicted to the bite of her vampire lovers, Ana is desperate to find them. But, Las Vegas isn’t ready for vampires mixing heroin, sex and vengeance. Ana is trapped in the spiraling chaos.

Review:
I really loved The Nightlife: New York and anticipating liking this one just as one. Such was not the case, however. Luedke’s writing is just as crisp and wonderful here as it was in the first, but a lot of what I really appreciated about the first book didn’t carry over into this one. Most notable was Aaron’s innocence. This was one of my favourite aspects of The Nightlife: New York. It seemed to have been replaced in The Nightlife: Las Vegas by The Predator. While I liked The Predator’s protective nature and general badassness it was no substitute for the nice-guy feel that was lost.

Similarly, there was a lot of sex in this book. There was plenty in the first one too and I have no problem with sex (and Luedke can write one hot scene), but here it started to crowd out the plot a little bit. A good 30% of the book passed between meeting the antagonist the first time and him taking any action toward Aaron and Michelle. There was very little in the intermediate 30% but sex of every imaginable sort. Plus it all felt a little one sided. Michelle, Aaron, and Ana are all about reckless abandon, but apparently only with girls. Never once is another man brought into the mix. There are countless women and just Aaron’s ‘sole penis,’ four on one at one point. Even Michelle seemed to prefer a female partner. It didn’t feel very natural.

As one should probably expect of Las Vegas it all takes a bit a turn toward the depraved too. No longer are the pages full of Aaron’s appreciation of Michelle’s beauty and sexuality or lines like, “Being in love was the biggest turn-on he’d ever known.” Instead they are littered with what every power-hungery scumbag would like to do to ‘that piece of ass,’ ‘whore,’ ‘tramp,’ ‘slut,’ etc (sometimes in quite shockingly lewd detail). At the conclusion of The Nightlife: New York I praised Luedke for writing a male oriented PNR that women could relate to. This one just felt like some sleazy, male fantasy run amok. I didn’t find this to be an improvement. It felt like something indefinable had been corrupted.

The ending was fairly predictable, but the addition of the new character Michael intrigued me. I’d be interested in knowing where that plot line goes.

The Nightlife New York

Book Review of Travis Luedke’s The Nightlife: New York

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Travis Luedke and I recently connected on Twitter. At the time he jokingly offered me a free copy of his first Nightlife novel (New York). It happened to be free on KDP that day so there wasn’t much sincerity in the offer, but it was amusing. Turns out I had already downloaded the sucker (pun intended since it’s a vampire book). I like the cover art and that’s often enough to grab my attention…that and it’s about vampires. I’m a sucker, I know. (OK I’ll stop.)

LONG Description from Goodreads:
Vampires, strippers, escorts, night clubs, gangs, pimps and corrupt cops, the Nightlife of New York is never boring.

Is she a beautiful blond guardian angel as he imagined, or something else entirely? When Michelle saves Aaron’s life she shares the benefits of her blood (after getting him shot accidentally). He awakes a changed man, living in a purgatory of eternal night, never to see the sunrise again.

Michelle drags Aaron through a hardcore learning curve of vampiric slavery. Forced to adapt to servitude, Aaron is subject to her authority of compulsion. She orders him around like a puppet on a string, a dog on a very short leash. First things first, he must learn to feed properly without creating bloodslaves (humans addicted to the powerful drug-like effect of their venomous bite).

And then she puts him to work-a male escort in the sex trade-same as Michelle. Aaron walks a tightrope of strictly controlled feeding regiments and intensely erotic sexual adventures while catering to the neurotic control-freak tendencies of his new master. It’s do or die, Michelle vows to eliminate him if he proves too difficult to control. The real kicker-amidst all these shocking and degrading adjustments, Aaron finds he’s falling in love.

Can he maintain and keep a sliver of his humanity intact? Innocence is a luxury few can afford in the decadent nightlife of New York. In a world where sex, blood, and power over women is so readily accessible, Aaron struggles against the predatory instincts deeply rooted in his new psyche. He must find his way quickly, practicing rigid self-control, or risk the consequences of Michelle’s wrath.

Review:
Nightlife: New York is a paranormal romance unlike I’ve ever read and it took me a little while to pinpoint why. Surprisingly, I think it is the fact that it was written by a man. It changed the feel and focus of the romance. There was a realism to the main character, Aaron’s, thoughts and actions that I can only imagine was born of the male author’s innate ability to relate to the emotions of a male character. This multidimensionalism  is often lacking in other PNR. They regularly focus almost exclusively on the man’s alpha qualities, to the exclusion of all others. And while I enjoy these novels it was nice to come across a PNR hero who had a little more depth to him.

Aaron Pilan is the nice guy who never gets much coverage in this genre. He isn’t 6’5”. He isn’t build like a tank. He isn’t bulging with muscles or oozing raw sex appeal. He doesn’t even wear leather or shitkickers. He’s attractive, but innocent and a little naive. Meeting the gorgeous vampire Michelle and being brought into her way of life throws him for a serious curve. I adored him! Over the course of the book he grew to be the strong alpha lead we women currently love so much, but managed to maintain the caring qualities that attracted Michelle in the first place. He was interested in more than just pounding a hapless, lust-driven female into a mattress (though the springs did get a workout or two) and I appreciated his internal debates as he tried to reassess his new role. 

There was a little bit of an info-dump in the beginning as Luedke established what type of vampire we’re dealing with. Do they sparkle or brood? Do they maintain their human intellect or become mindless predators, etc? The book gets a little dry during this necessary evil, but quickly picks back up. There are a whole host of interesting underworld characters who play their role without ever cluttering up the plot, a little bit of humour, some sizzling moments, and some tender moments. There really is just about enough of everything.

This is definitely one worth picking up. I have Nightlife: Las Vegas which I have every intention of reading. As an aside, I happened to notice that both books are still be free on Amazon at the moment. I don’t know how long that will last though.