i love laurell k hamilton, both pre- and post- ardeur (i count merry gentry as post-ardeur, lol) though i realize it was a substantial departure from what a lot of readers enjoyed... that said, i've recently fallen into sherrilyn kenyon's dark-hunter series as well. i'm really really enjoying it, but it's far more like post-ardeur LKH than pre-, so some readers might not like it as much. sounds like it could be right up the thread starter's alley, tho!
there's a separate thread in this forum with a reading order for it that would help you decide where to start if you'd like to try it out. also, as mentioned in that post, you can currently download one of the later books in the series for free (from various sites, i think, but definitely from the author's current hype site,
http://www.yearofacheron.com/ebook.html) to check her out.
EDIT: forgot to mention, i've also read a couple of books from christine feehan's carpathian series, and enjoyed them, but haven't gone to the effort of tracking down more of them, especially in ebook format. again, they're heavy on the erotica and romance angle, but fun.
