Be surprised. I hated the first book but I really like this book. Turns out Miss Frost really did improve something even if it was rather inconsistent. In fact, I could compel myself that I never had read the first book since this one is right up in my alley. Of course I had issues but thankfully some character development managed to even out the scale. 
 The novel didn't really pick up with the previous one and in fact, nothing doesn't really change much between Vlad and Leila (unfortunate woman with my aunt's name). Leila have been trying to make Vlad confess his feelings to her and instead of grovelling, after he went on MIA on her, he suddenly offered her to be with him if she would stay with him as a vampire instead of really confessing his feelings. Feeling crushed, she left him in Romania to go back to US where she reacquainted with her circus friend and try to get a job after her role being replaced by another girl. But things went awry when the circus blew up around her. 
 First of all, I don't recommend anyone to do the same tantrumy with the whole "if you love me, let me go" thing. If you have a misunderstanding, even if the other is an psychopathic empath (how on earth these two opposing thing would even converge into one character), try to be less emotional and start learning to communicate. Its not romantic at all nor healthy at all. I've been burned by it and it make a huge mess of stuff but please don't use this novel to assume that your chosen romantic companion to know a clue about you in nonverbal form. 
 Luckily, things does pick up. It gets better when a bomb blew up, kill a lot of people and Leila finally get some of her backbone on her to chase after the bomber. Unfortunately, we had Maximus who wanted Leila for himself and had thought that Vlad was letting her go for good so we had a third wheeler. I'm not sure why he's necessary again. Oh... to save Leila from killing herself. Again. 
 In fact the book have multitudes of nearly death experiences and some of them was completely intentional. In fact, I think Leila was resuscitated around four or five times in this book. I really hate it when a main female character go on a suicide watch because she's too stubborn to stop using her psychic power and recharge for a short while. 
 As for Vlad, yes, he's so dreamy and syrupy and so darkly muscular and enticing and you're free to put half-clad heavily muscular pictures to satisfy your cravings. But he's still an uber-psychopathic controlling manipulative jerk with a lot of issues. Apparently, it got better because he did came for Leila and drag her back to his castle and finally he lay his heart bare for her which he took one and a half book and several near death experiences to say the L-word. That even after she tried to kill herself again trying to prove that she love him so much even though he like to kill people for breakfast. Once or twice is enough with the whole self-sacrificing thing but if I could use my fingers to count how many times Leila had to die by herself (and hint, she did several times and most of it because she use her psychic ability too much) it usually means a bigger problem. 
 I did enjoy the book but there are things that bugs me right after I finish it which dampened some of my excitement. Its not hard to not fall for the steamy Vlad, the sexy scenes but I like my spunky awesome lightning whip action acrobatic main girl character who are supposedly to have a backbone and brain to use her brain and to stop mistaking idiocy with blind stubbornness. It's genuinely, unattractive. Besides, this book could have been crammed together with the first book to make it more solid.