Pocket, $6.99, ISBN 0-7434-6742-6
Fantasy Romance, 2003
It is quite a shock to read the first book in Susan Sizemore’s vampire romance for Pocket and realize that I Burn for You is a watered-down story filled with the usual vampire romance clichés. I am used to associating her name with decent paranormal and mystery stories, but I Burn For You is nothing more than a book that seems to emulate the formula of the likes of Christine Feehan’s Carpathian series.
Vampires have discovered a way, through modern surgical methods, to walk in daylight. Some vampires prefer to stick to the old ways of doing and they end up as heroes in a bad Amanda Ashley vampire novel. Meanwhile, our hero Alec Reynard is a powerful vampire of his tribe, there’s a hint of some army background in this vampire’s life, maybe some secret agent thing, and he’s also myriad of other romance hero clichés that are never really made clear in this ill-defined story. He has been sharing erotic dreams with his soulmate (or “bondmate” in this book) Domini Lancer, so when they meet (Alec is hired as Domini’s bodyguard), it’s the same old italicized “he wants, she’s not sure, he wants, he must have, HE WANTS!” psychobabble all the way to the end where Domini realizes that Alec is a powerful vampire. Some minor subplot provides just a bare minimum amount of plot to complement the tedious “I want! She’s my bondmate! I want!” romance here.
Is that what romance readers are supposed to want? Given that I Burn for You is a nearly plotless book with minimum characterization that goes beyond clichés, I feel rather uneasy at the whole calculated feel of the direction this new vampire romance series is taking. Well, good for Susan Sizemore if she gets a chunk of the success Christine Feehan is getting with this book. But a part of me feels rather sad if that happens, because this will suggest that going plot-free is the way to go and everything will be forgiven as long as the story has an alpha psychic vampire and a heroine that can’t make up her mind. What is this saying about romance readers in general?
Oh well. Why am I thinking so much about this, you ask? Because Susan Sizemore is a better author than this, that’s why. She can write better stories and she has done so in the past. For her to come out with this transparently calculated story that lifelessly goes through the motions to be a perfectly clichéd vampire romance story, it’s like watching Bob Dylan performing his most tired and accessible radio-friendly song at the Oscars a few years back. “Selling out” is an ugly phrase, but those words cross my mind way too many times when I am reading this book.
