The Awakening (Vampire Huntress Legend Series #2)

by L. A. Banks

Overview

A battle is brewing in the underworld, and at the center of it all is Damali Richards, spoken word artist and vampire huntress. But she is not just any huntress; she is the millennium Neteru, a woman so powerful that the vampire world is about to start a war-one that threatens to spread onto her streets-in order to possess her...

Fallon Nuit, a rogue vampire who is one of the most powerful Damali has ever encountered, has allied himself with the deadly Amanthra demons in order to claim her. But the Vampire Council has plans for her as well. And now an unlikely variable has entered the equation: an ex-lover turned master vampire with an agenda of his own. Damali must risk trusting him once more if they are to survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312316839
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Publication date:	01/21/2004
Series:	Vampire Huntress Legend Series , #2
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	433,626
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

L. A. Banks is the author of the Vampire Huntress Legend series and the Crimson Moon Novels. She had a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and a master's in fine arts from Temple University. Banks considered herself a shape-shifter. She wrote romance, women's fiction, crime and suspense, and of course, dark vampire huntress lore. She lived with her daughter in an undisclosed lair somewhere in Philadelphia.

Editorial Reviews

In this follow-up to Minion (2003), Banks proves that vampire novels, like their vampire characters, often spawn progeny all too much in their own image. Events begin precisely where they dead-ended in the first novel, with rock 'n' roller cum vampire-slayer Damali Richards the prey of renegade vampire-master Fallon Nuit, who wants her eliminated for the grief she's caused him and his hybrid demon-vampire minions. The Vampire Council also seek to vampirize her and the child they scheme to seed her with before her 21st birthday. The council is depending on newly un-dead Carlos Rivera, Damali's ex-lover, to find her weak spot-but Carlos has his own agenda to retrieve his soul before he becomes an irredeemable vampire, and he secretly plays the council, Nuit and even Damali and her band against one another to achieve his goal. For all the double-crossing intrigue, choreographed bloodshed and physical mayhem, readers will find little in the plot to distinguish this novel from its predecessor. The author devotes most of her energies to fleshing out minutiae of her weird world, which includes elaborate hierarchies and biological imperatives that govern its hordes in the afterlife. The result is an ambitious but often slow-going fantasy that will appeal mainly to Banks's loyal minions. (Jan. 28) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In a world where vampires struggle for control, Damali Richards, a hunter of vampires and a spoken-word artist, stands between the living and the undead. Richards is a determined and driven heroine, able to use both her wits and her fighting prowess to protect human prey. Banks's sequel to Minion envisions an intriguing portrait of vampiric society, reminiscent of Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. A good series for most libraries, with sure appeal to fans of vampire fiction. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Second and shorter trade paperback entry in the Afro Vampire Huntress rock 'n' roll trilogy rip-off of Blade, Buffy, and Lestat, following Minion (2003). At 20, destiny-driven Damali Richards, a New Orleans orphan and now a Spoken Word artiste, nears full awakening of her superpowers as an adult vampire huntress as she runs about carrying rhino bullets fresh-packed with hallowed earth and holy water grenades that blast like C-4-which has got master vampire Fallon Nuit and the Vampire High Council in a major tizzy. Unhappily for Damali, her sometime lover Carlos Rivera got turned and is dead, man, or rather undead, and time's gotta come when Damali or one of her devamper Warriors of Light stakes him out so that he gets real cool, real dead. It's war, with Fallon Nuit's demonic Minion of rogue hybrid-vampires against Damali, who's protected by seven guardians, including band members who double on drums and crossbow, or computer-crossbow-wooden stake, or as Aikido instructor/choreographer/bassist. As Carlos is led through a many-layered hell of demons, each layer as richly defined as Dante's Inferno, his bloodthirst rises, and, back on earth, he nearly attacks his mother, his grandmother, and their young helper Juanita before he's interrupted. Meanwhile, the Council demands that Carlos bring in Damali in three days, when she ovulates, so their seed will ripen in her before her birthday. Technically, Carlos, who died in prayer, is not dead, only transformed, and thus untrustworthy for this job. Will he sign the eternal contract and deposit his soul with the Council? Will Nuit's plan for armies of hybrid demons to turn hundreds of thousands of Damali's concertgoers on five continents besuccessful? Will vamps get viral immunity to sunlight and become daywalkers? Strong improvement for Banks, who found herself attacked by Internet fans of Laurel K. Hamilton, Anita Blake, and Buffy's Joss Whedon, vampiricists who make no reflections in mirrors.

Kirkus Reviews

With The Awakening, Banks solidifies her intriguing, dark series as a project worth watching.” —Booklist

“Again, Banks brilliantly combines spirituality, vampires, and demons (and hip hop music) into a fast-paced tale that is sure to leave fans of her first novel, Minion, panting for more but nothing seems quite as hot as the steamy, often tense relationship between Damali and Carlos...a newcomer to the vampire genre...[Banks] lends a fresh and contemporary voice.” —Columbus Dispatch

“[Banks is] wildly creative and invents a totally new and refreshing milieu.” —Fangoria

From the Publisher