Bare Essensuals (BE) Reviews

Kiss of Midnight, for BE Reviews

Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian

Bantam Dell

http://www.laraadrian.com

Gabrielle Maxwell’s life hadn’t started of so well. Apparently abandoned by her mother in a garbage bin, she made her way through a variety of foster homes before she was adopted at age twelve. By then Gabrielle was quite independent and had learned she was “different”. That difference led her take amazing photographs of lonely, deceptively, deserted places. While out at a night club, celebrating the success of a good gallery showing, she witnesses a brutal and bizarre murder and no one believes what she saw.

The murder and her photographs bring visitors to her door. These visitors aren’t from Gabrielle’s world – they are vampires. One of them, Lucan Thorne, wants to protect her and is passionately drawn to her. One of them only wants to use her in a mounting war between vampires, and then discard her as dead.

Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind against the threat of the Rogues. What he doesn’t know is that the Rogues have a new leader and the battle he is staging is going to be one that they’ve never seen before. He never expected, or wanted, to bind himself to a mortal woman, but Gabrielle is not just any woman. She is a Breedmate, a kind of mortal woman that is able to bear the children of a vampire.

While Lucan and Gabrielle fight against an unknown enemy, as well as their feelings for each other, they discover that fate had brought them together when she was a baby and destiny brought them together now.

Kiss of Midnight drew me on the very first page and didn’t stop until I was finished. I eagerly wanted to read each page and each word lead me to the next. I found all the characters believable and their relationships something I could relate to or at least understand. Lucan was hot from the minute I “saw” him watching Gabrielle across the crowded dance floor of a night club. At that point all I knew of him were a pair of sunglasses but I sensed so much more.

Gabrielle had a great mix of independence and loyalty; she had passion for her work and friends to have fun with. Behind all of this I felt an aching in Gabrielle to really belong that I can’t put into words but that I really felt as her characterization was further expanded. When she met Lucan that aching started to diminish and I was knew they were right together. That may sound odd but there are so many times in books where the lead characters meet and I don’t believe it - I don’t believe their relationships or that they were connected so quickly. In Kiss of Midnight I believe all of it.

It takes a true craftsman to layer characterization and build relationships in such an intricate weaving that the reader is drawn in to the tale. Lara Adrian is that true craftsman. Also, even though Kiss of Midnight is the first in a series, which I knew before I started reading it, the book was written in such a way as to show the entourage of Breed warriors without doing it in an obvious “oh yeah, this is heading to a series” kind of way. That usually dulls the reading slightly for me.

All in all, Kiss of Midnight was an excellent read. I am excited to see Ms. Adrian continue on with this series and look forward to the release of Kiss of Crimson. I

I give this a 5

Labels: Rating 5

posted by Michelle @ 11:17 a.m. Comments: 0