Adele Clee's "Lost to the Night", the start of her Brotherhood series, was an okay to cute read and does not follow the lines of any typical vampire romance story. The melancholy vampire, Alexander, might be likened to Angel from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in some respects. He hates what he is, wonders if he has a soul, believes himself unworthy of love.... Whereas, Angel will turn into the torturous Angelous once he's achieved only a moment of true happiness and then we see many deadly vampiric aspects - as much as television will allow, but with Alexander, his only true, deadly and horrific vampire status comes about when antagonist Southerby threatens Alexander's love interest Eve, and slashes Alexander with a knife. The tortured vampire has been done before, although Clee's version was somewhat cute with Alexander's self-loathing and needing Eve's love to bolster him. The non-lethal vampire only drinking animal blood was introduced in a more comical way by Stephanie Meyer's in her "Twilight" series, with the Cullen family calling themselves "vegetarian" vampires. Now that's a hoot and laugh-out-loud worthy! However, kudos to Clee for presenting her vampires as non-lethal as possible, hence making them likeable and, one assumes, easier to hide what they are. Clee does keep this regency paranormal romance true to history; a regency is set during the time period of the British Regency - the early 19th century, roughly the years 1811 through 1820. Others have commented on the somewhat stilted dialogue, but it does actually work with this era. People sound "stuffy" back then, to what readers today might expect. Like many other regency novels this reader has read, Clee's tale was very slow to start; unfortunately, it was also fairly predictable and didn't differ too much from many similar stories... just substitute a vampire for your typical aristocrat. Sadly, this reader did fight boredom with this story due to the predictability. On the plus side, Eve was a strong female exhibiting characteristics one might associate with a younger alpha coming into their powers and strength, while vampire Alexander exhibited the typical wishy washy and weak characteristics many associate with female submissives. This role reversal may have been the only defining characteristic to label this tale "original" in any way. Another reviewer likened the beginning of the tale to "Beauty and the Beast", while this reader found connections with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - minus the slaying. There were a few spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, but not enough to toss a reader from Clee's world. The tale was okay to while away a few hours - at best, but not quite good enough to convince this reader to continue with the series. However, based on comments concerning some of Clee's other writings, this reader will not rule out reading her again. She just won't bother with the Brotherhood series. ** Review originally posted to Amazon reviews on July 16, 2017 and on Goodreads on the same date. **
