Oooh yum! Regency manners, evil vampires and demons and a wickedly wonderful dash of passion … Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles simply DO it for me – big time! *grin*.

As Shadows Fade is the fifth and final book in this wonderful series. In her seven years as a Venator Victoria Gardella has struggled and suffered as she has honed her skills. She’s lost her husband and her aunt and the man she loves also seems lost to her.  

It’s time for Victoria to embrace all she can be. She juggles morning visits, soirees, the matchmaking mammas and the haute ton with the best of them. But as Illa Gardella, vampire slayer, she’s also quick with a stake, studies Eastern martial arts, can ride a horse into the ground and knows how to battle the undead. If she is to understand all it is to be the Illa Gardella and a woman then she must draw upon all her feminine as well as vampire-slaying skills.

Don’t mistake me. Battling demons, incurring terrible wounds, facing down fears and learning the importance of sacrifice for a greater goal … these are painful issues and play as important a role in resolving the relationship between Victoria and her hero as does their passion for each other.

Colleen Gleason has a remarkable balance when it comes to the stylized manners of the Regency period interspersed with the painful and quite horrifying battles against vampires and demons, just as she is able to balance the romance with the fight to close down the demon portal.
She moves lightly between the humourous and the deadly while moving the plot along at a fast pace and allowing these characters we have come to love to each achieve their rightful place.

It’s a wise author who knows when, and how, to close a series. As Shadows Fade was a wonderful ending, hopeful but also sad. And Victoria and her hero (no I can’t say who it ends up being!) *happy sigh*!