(RabidReads.com)The Midnight Breed books have always been favorite reads for me. They are usually well written, with a great romance, and all the action one could ever want out of a book. Great back stories, as well as complex characters also characterize these reads. This is the second 1001 Dark Nights book by this author, and now I have read both. They are novellas and I am one the people that enjoys novella length books-usually. I did have some problems with this read.
Jehan is a member of the Order and spends his time searching for rogue vampires that are suffering from blood lust. It’s up to the Order, made up of vampire warriors, to keep the human population safe from the insanity that afflicts those with blood lust. He is stationed in Rome, but is originally from Morocco, where his family was once considered royalty, making Jehan a prince, albeit only if he lived back in ancient times. As the eldest son of his family, due to an ancient pact, he is supposed to mate with the eldest daughter of another prominent family, someone he has never met. Seraphina is an aide worker at refugee camps in the area. She doesn’t want to mate for eternity with someone she has never met anymore than Jehan does. However, both of them take one look at each other and there is a definite immediate attraction.
Since it is so short, I am not going to go any farther into the story. I liked the main characters, and as long as you don’t mind the inst-love element, then the romance was a good one. Very little of the Midnight Breed trademark action makes it into this read. A bit here and there, but nothing really intense. Instead, most of the book centers mostly on the romance, which wasn’t exactly what I am used to when reading one of these books.These books are usually part of the urban fantasy genre, but not so this one. So that was disappointing for me. But my main problem with this read is this, at 118 pages, this book actually doesn’t begin until 8% into the book and ended at 88%, making a full 20% of the novella pure filler. I actually finished the book and said out loud, rip-off! So no, I wasn’t really happy with this read, something I really thought I would never say about a Midnight Breed book. It needed more character development, and more action. It could have had another thirty to fifty pages, still been a novella, and given us a better and more complex story, in my opinion.
People not familiar with all of the other books in this authors world probably wouldn’t miss the action scenes and mystery usually involved, but those of us that have read them from the beginning might feel this read comes up a bit short. I still mostly enjoyed the read, and it did keep me reading(for a little over an hour), but I just felt it wasn’t up to par with this authors usual excellent work.