BOUND BY NIGHT by Larissa Ione

Bound by Night
Larissa Ione

Rating: D
Release Date: 09/24/13
Synopsis:
The first installment in a sexy new paranormal romance series by Larissa Ione, author of the bestselling Demonica series!

A WOMAN OUT FOR BLOOD
Nicole Martin was only eight years old when the vampire slaves rose up in rebellion and killed her family. Now she devotes her life to finding a vaccine against vampirism, hoping to wipe out her memories—along with every bloodsucker on the planet. But there’s one thing she cannot destroy: her searing, undeniable attraction for the one man she should hate and fear the most . . .

A VAMPIRE OUT FOR REVENGE
A member of the renegade vampire MoonBound Clan, Riker is haunted by demons of his own. When he recognizes Nicole and remembers how her family enslaved his loved ones, his heart burns for vengeance. But when he kidnaps Nicole and holds her in a secret lair, his mortal enemy becomes his soul obsession, his greatest temptation, and, perhaps, his only salvation—a hot-blooded lover who could heal him with her touch . . . or bury him forever.

My thoughts on the book:
I had high hopes for Bound by Night, but it was a huge disappointment. Not only does it damage American Indian nations by making them all fit the stereotypical "Indian," and therefore depoliticizing them, but the writing is subpar and the characters are dull. The idea of a world where humans dominate vampires intrigues me, though, so I kept reading hoping that it'd get better. It didn't. The world-building was okay, but the plot started to fall by the wayside about 3/4 of the way though. The more Ione tried to get in touch with her so-called "native roots" the more idiotic the plot became. 

Nicole isn't the brightest character around, when it comes to common sense. I mean I understood her dilemma, and I could understand why she felt the way she did, but she just makes some really stupid mistakes. Riker, too, is stupid. Also, their situation kind of creeped me out a bit. Basically I spent a lot of the book wanting to smack both of them. 

Now onto the plot and such. The native touches were unnecessary and the way that she described the Cherokee as being of the prairie when they are from the Appalachians was ridiculous. Part of the tribe was forced on the Trail of Tears and ended up in Oklahoma. How dare you claim at the beginning of a book that you want to get to know your "native heritage" (who DOESN'T have native heritage? *eye roll*) and not even know about the Trail of Tears. What kind of "research" did you do, Ms. Ione? What, did you read the atrocity known as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and consider yourself an expert? Also, she put the Cherokee in teepees, which they never used. They built highly sophisticated round houses. Only Plains Indians used teepees. Forcing all indigenous peoples into ignorant settler colonial ideas depoliticizes contemporary indigenous nations and hurts the citizens of those nations. Therefore, Ione should be ashamed. But I digress. *steps down from soap box* The idea itself is an intriguing one, and I wanted to know how the humans ended up dominating the vampires. Well, we never quite find that out. I'm assuming a very vague "science" as the answer, but that implies that vampires (and Indians by extension) are incapable of "civilized" thought, which is ludicrous. Indigenous peoples are scientists and doctors, too. Anyway, in that way the world-building was awful. However, Ione did let us know what it's like living in a world like that, even though we can't understand why the world is like that.  The plot itself wasn't very strong, and it got weaker as the book continued. The pacing was just fine. 

Overall, I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone. Unfortunately it's just not very enjoyable. If you want to read paranormal romance, there are much better authors out there.