Nightshade

Jill Conrad, a temp at a San Diego investment firm, is coming back from a coffee run when a man grabs her, injects her with a serum, and is shot dead by half-vampire Declan Reyes. Not only does she feel violently ill, she learns that the serum has just made her blood irresistible—and poisonous—to vampires. Reyes whisks Jill off to a remote lab where his human allies are plotting to kill a renegade vampire king. Schemes, secrets and betrayals pile up as Declan and Jill become allies and lovers, though it's hard to imagine that she feels well enough to have sex between suffering from nausea and headaches and being used as vampire bait. Readers may get frustrated as the protagonists are repeatedly imprisoned and otherwise restrained from taking real action, and many will be put off by Jill's repeated victimization. (Feb.)