Hot Blooded

Make room for these sexy nightstalkers on your bedtime reading table. Authors Christine Feehan, Maggie Shayne, Emma Holly, and Angela Knight conjure up handsome shapeshifters, Carpathians, werewolves, and vampires in these four original stories.

Feehan's tale, "Dark Hunger", set in the jungle, features an animal activist who liberates more than just animals when she frees an all-but-forgotten human prisoner.

Shayne's story, "Awaiting Moonrise", set in the bayou, stars a brilliant young professor whose fieldwork calls for very hands-on research.

In Emma Holly's story, "The Night Owl", set in Vermont, a beautiful young baker gets more than yeast to rise when she gets to know the mysterious, pale-faced owner of the local B&B.

And, in "Seduction's Gift", Angela Knight's heroine, a gutsy young cop, takes a dare to the max when she bets she can bed a vampire just a few times without risking conversion -- or her heart. Ginger Curwen