Boy meets girl.

Boy gives girl best sex of her life.

Boy does not drink...wine.

Boy does drink girl's blood.

Subplot with horrible, sociopathic villain.

Boy is falsely accused of something.

More subplot with HSV.

Girl is attacked because of boy.

Big finish to subplot.

Boy rescues girl.

Bad Thing happens to HSV.

Girl doesn't want to be with boy anymore.

Boy is sad and alone. ( )

Borne in Blood is Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's 20th entry in her Saint Germain series. I've been reading the counts adventures from the beginning. At this point it feel like I'm catching up with an old friend. Her meticulous attention to detail really helps to visualize the time period of the book. Borne in Blood takes place right after the end of the Napoleonic wars. Saint-Germain has taken as a companion a woman, Hero, widowed by the war. Hero is in a struggle with her father-in-law to have access to her children. Yabro highlights just how few rights women have in this time period. It also shows how women are so used to such treatment that they just accept it without questions. In a sense this is more a story about Hero, than it is the count. As such the threat this time is directed toward Hero, and it is up to the count to rescue her.

The ending was predictable, but that didn't bother me. As I said in the beginning, the count seems like an old friend, and I don't always want to see him battered at the end of the book. ( )