Love across time
A romance that begins on the battlefields of the Great War and ends in the candlelit streets of New Orleans, more than a century later.
the book
A Treatment, Not a Cure
Gothic paranormal romance · historical fiction
back cover
Baron Dane Morgenstern, the vampire, was born on the battlefields of Verdun. Several decades later Chad Blackrain was born in New Orleans. Their paths crossed in Afghanistan in 2006. Blackrain was a Combat Medic attempting to save his best friend's life. Morgenstern, posing as a NATO doctor, intervened by cutting his wrist allowing his blood to bathe the mortal wound. His healing blood saved the soldier.
In 2023, now Dr. Blackrain reconstituted Morgenstern's blood from his blood-stained uniform jacket to treat a child with a rare blood disease. Unfortunately it was a treatment, not a cure. Dr. Blackrain needed to lure the vampire to the city of New Orleans because the living blood was the cure.
extended synopsis
The hunt for living blood
Baron Dane Morgenstern, the Vampire, acquires a donor through a medical message board. His feed is interrupted by the cries of a small boy. Dr. Blackrain met Morgenstern in Afghanistan when he was an Army combat medic. His group was on patrol when an IED exploded. His best friend, Tony Milazzo's leg was shredded by shrapnel. Milazzo was bleeding out when Morgenstern, posing as a NATO medic, intervened and saved Milazzo's life.
Blackrain is in love with a nurse whose son has a rare blood disease. He remembers that his army jacket has vampire's blood on it. He soaks the blood-stained jacket in saline which makes a golden serum that has healing effects. He treats the boy, but its effects are temporary.
themes
What the book is about
The cost of immortality
Baron Morgenstern has lived long enough to forget the taste of hope. The boy's cries remind him what he gave up to survive.
Healing and harm
The same blood that saved a soldier in Kandahar can now save a child in Louisiana — but only at a price.
War and what it leaves behind
Verdun, Afghanistan, New Orleans. Three battlefields. Three generations of survivors. One blood-stained jacket.
content notes
For sensitive readers
Combat violence (Verdun, Afghanistan). Medical themes including a child with a rare blood disease. Sensuality. Mature themes appropriate to gothic paranormal romance.