Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed #10 - Chase and Tavia) by Lara Adrian

I'm not sure how to rate this book. I'm leaning towards 3.5 stars.. 

The story itself of Tavia and Chase wasn't bad. I think that they fit. it "works" in my mind. But I think that their story was lacking in a way. I didn't see enough of them as a couple or "couple to be" (you know when it's still confusing for the both of them). Tavia is SO cool but I felt she was too anemic to who she "could" be, with her potential. .her resolve to end Dragos was simply stupid though it turned out for the best in the end... Chase in my mind is just, well, tiring, his conflicts ran through too many books that in the end I was just "not in the mood" to have more of his shit concentrated in one book.


My "problem" with not enough Tavia-Chase is due to the fact that we have (like in the previous book) more of the Order. which is GREAT. you get an amazing and sensitive scene with Lucan and Gabrielle (Just so you'll know what I'm taking about - steamy sex in the moonlight). We have more things happening with Jenna (and we sure have more interesting material to come from their revelations!). In general I feel that we had more of most of the characters, which I missed in some of the previous books. 

Dragos. well, I think we can all agree he is a sick bastard. but in this book you see HOW MUCH sick he is. personally, I was tired of him as well. he is TOO sick, his ideas are just too much in one person which they are hunting for wayyy too long (9-10 books). Some of the things he has done we still don't fully understand (and I wonder if there is any connection to what Jenna found out about the Ancient). I hate "apocalyptic" kind of books and Dragos's way seems exactly that. After this book some things are going to be different. how different - you'll have to read and find out :) 

I love this series, I love most of the characters. But as a "resolve" book of everything Dragos had in mind for the past 50 or so years - this book was somehow disappointing. Also, there are too many questions unanswered.
I'm not "hating" this book or "sorry I read it" - it was simply not as good as the previous ones and maybe the combination of two characters I didn't have the mind to read too much about - Dragos and Chase simply wasn't it for me.. The book has a lot of action to it, lots of things happening but it wasn't interesting enough for me if it took me THAT long to read (a week and a half).






Additional Details: Kindle Ebook, 369 pages, 15-24 September 2013 / On GoodReads
 
 
ABOUT THE MCs
 
Sterling “Harvard” Chase
Breed male, former Enforcement Agent, current Order member. Son of August Chase, brother of Quentin. Sterling Chase was born and raised in Boston more than a century ago. Part of the Darkhaven elite, Chase comes from a well-connected, political family with deep ties to the Breed’s Enforcement Agency. Bound by the Chase family motto, “Duty first.” Like the rest of his family, he holds several degrees from Harvard University, and before joining the Order during the timeline of Kiss of Crimson, most of Chase’s combat training was academic. This, along with his rigid, by-the-book attitude prompted Dante to nickname him “Harvard” the first time the warrior met him, although the two later became as close as brothers. Chase’s uptight nature disguises an inner turmoil that has plagued him for many years. Those struggles have cost him family and friends, and have become dangerously more apparent in the time he’s been part of the Order. Chase’s fight to resist Bloodlust nearly costs him his friendship with Dante. Chase and Tavia are parents to fraternal twins, a son and daughter, Aric and Carys, born soon after the close of Darker After Midnight.
Hair: golden blond Eyes: blue
Unique ability: Shadow-bender.

Octavia “Tavia” Fairchild
Gen One Breed and Breedmate genetic hybrid. Daywalker. Born in Boston twenty-seven years before the timeline of Darker After Midnight, raised by her aunt Sarah since infancy, when Tavia survived a house fire that killed her parents. Highly intelligent and capable, Tavia works as an assistant to a rising star senator in Boston. On the personal side, Tavia’s greatest limitations are the “scars” she bears from the accident, and a rare medical condition that requires frequent treatments at a specialized private clinic. What Tavia doesn’t realize--until her life collides with that of Sterling Chase, embroiled in an ongoing conflict of the Order’s--is that everything she’s been raised to believe has been a lie. She is neither human nor pure Breedmate; she is something extraordinary. Tavia later learns the truth of her origins, including the fact that her aunt is actually a Minion tasked with supervising her upbringing and reporting to Dragos. Tavia also discovers there are other females like her when she and Chase uncover secured lab records in her doctor’s office. Together Tavia and Sterling Chase are the parents of fraternal twins, a son and daughter, Aric and Carys, born just after the close of Darker After Midnight.
Hair: shoulder-length, caramel brown Eyes: spring leaf green
Breedmate mark: on her lower back Bloodscent: sweet, like nectar from a forbidden vine
Unique ability: photographic memory (also has other unusual abilities that are awakened once she learns the truth of what she is).
ABOUT THIS SERIES
 
Midnight Breed by Lara Adrian is one of my absolute favorite Paranormal Romance Series. Like many of the series in this genre, we have a group of vampire warriors who are in charge of defending their race. 

The Order mainly protect the general population (vampire AND humans) from rouge vampires. Vampires whose crave for blood have reached a point of no return meaning they can no longer control themselves and since there is nothing to be done about this situation these rouges vampires have to be put down. Besides obvious risk to the human population, rouges / rabid vampires also are a treat in the sense that vampires live in secret groups (called Darkhavens) there they can live their separate lives without probing human eyes. Naturally they are a part of the general population but the way they live, in a sort of community, helps them maintain their traditions and way of living. 


In the recent years, the Order became infamous. There is no respect for the members of the Order and moreover they are treated like "barbarians", the vampire population doesn't believe that they are even needed but boy oh boy they are wrong.. dark days are ahead.. 


In the beginning, years and years ago, a group of highly strong vampires crushed on Earth. They are the base of the vampire population nowadays. As is seems there are no female vampires, only males. The females that can reproduce with vampires are called "breedmates" and they can be distinguished by a certain mark (crescent moon with a drop) that each breedmate has somewhere on her body. Each breedmate also has a special (inhuman) ability which she transfers to her vampire son. Thus every vampire has a special ability passed to him from his human mother. Breedmates need to drink blood in order to enhance their special ability and sometimes so they can control it and it won't take over her life.  It takes time until the ancestry of the breedmates is explained, it adds another layer to the story and brings the Order with another adversary they weren't expecting. 


Each book has it's separate story in which each warrior finds himself a breedmate / compatible mate. As you can guess, the Order isn't notorious for no reason.. most of the warriors are somehow "damaged", preferring to live a life in the Order rather than build a life of their own. Finding their mate makes them deal with their past and free themselves from its bindings. Beside the personal plot line there is also a bigger plot line about the main villain progressing from the first book until the 10th. From the 11th book (till the final 18th installment) there is a very significant change following a progression in 20 years changing the whole setting of the series with different villains as well as introducing new characters to the series - some the sons and daughters from the first 10 installments and of course we get to meet the older version of the parents as well. 


The main issue I had with the series in the beginning was the similarities between it and the general setting of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward. It only feels this way at the first, it takes a TOTALLY different direction plot-wise and character-wise which after reading enough of the two series I gotta say I MUCH prefer this one (I actually abandoned that one a while back..). 


HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!

When the whiffs of the end of this beloved series started to get suffocating Lara announced a Spin-Off called "Hunter Legacy". The series will consist of stand-alone novels of the "Last Boys" - the Gen One Hunters who were bred as weapons of war by Dragos and were freed by The Order round the middle of the series. 

Books:
0.5 A Touch of Midnight [Gideon & Savannah] (published 15 July 2013) ★★★★★
1. Kiss of Midnight [Lucan & Gabrielle] (published 1 May 2007) ★★★★
2. Kiss of Crimson [Dante & Tess] (published 29 May 2007) ★★★★★
3. Midnight Awakening [Tegan & Elise] (published 27 November 2007) ★★★★★
4. Midnight Rising [Rio & Dylan] (published 25 March 2008) ★★★★★
5. Veil of Midnight [Niko & Renata] (published 30 December 2008) ★★★★ 
6. Ashes of Midnight [Andreas Reichen & Claire] (published 26 May 2009) ★★★★★

7. Shades of Midnight [Cade & Alex] (published 29 December 2009) ★★★★  
8. Taken By Midnight [Brock & Jenna] (published 28 September 2010) ★★★★★
9. Deeper than Midnight [Hunter & Corrine] (published 28 June 2011) ★★★★★
9.5 A Taste of Midnight [Danika & Malcolm] (published 5 December 2011) ★★★★★
10. Darker after Midnight [Chase & Tavia] (published 24 January 2012) ★★★½ 
 --- The Midnight Breed Series Companion (Volume #1) (published 26 June 2013) ★★★★★

 
11. Edge of Dawn [Mira & Kellan] (published 21 February 2013) ★★★★★
11.5. Marked By Midnight [Mathias Rowan & Nova] (published 30 June 2014) ★★★★

12. Crave the Night [Nathan & Jordana] (published 5 August 2014) ★★★★★
12.5. Tempted by Midnight [Lazaro & Melena] (1001 Dark Nights #10) (published 14 October 2014) ★★★★★
13. Bound to Darkness [Carys & Rune] (published 30 July 2015) ★★★★
13.5 Stroke of Midnight [Jehan & Seraphina] (1001 Dark Nights #26) (published 13 October 2015) ★★★★★
14. Defy the Dawn [Zael & Brynne(published 1 June 2016) ★★★★★

14.5 Midnight Untamed [Ettore & Bella] (1001 Dark Nights #47) (published 11 October 2016) ★★★★
14.6 Midnight Unbound [Scythe & Chiara]
 (published 14 March 2017) ★★★★½
14.7 Midnight Unleashed [Trygg & Tamisia] (1001 Dark Nights #69) (published 10 October 2017) ★★★½ 
15. Claimed in Shadows [Aric Chase & Kaya Laurent] (published 23 January 2018) ★★★ 
16. Break the Day [Xander Raphael "Rafe" Malebranche & Devony Winters] (published 30 July 2019) ★★★★½ 
17. Fall of Night [Micah & Phaedra] (published 31 January 2021)) ★★★★½
18. King of Midnight [Darion Thorne & Selene the Atlantean Queen] (to be Published 31 March 2022)

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