Review: Darker After Midnight by Lara Adrian

Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed #10) by Lara Adrian
Publication Date: January 24, 2012
Publisher: Robinson Publishing
Number of Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Buy: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Add to Goodreads

The climactic novel in Lara Adrian's "New York Times" bestselling Midnight Breed series--and her hardcover debut--"Darker After Midnight" invites readers to enter a thrillingly sensual world where danger meets desire.
In the dark of night, a blood war escalates within the hidden world of the Breed. After existing in secret for many long centuries, maintaining a fragile peace with the humans who walk beside them unaware, a single act of retaliation has put the entire vampire nation at risk of discovery. It falls to the Order--a cadre of Breed warriors pledged to protect their own and humankind alike--to stop Dragos, the power-mad vampire at the center of the conflict, before his push for domination can explode into catastrophe.
At the center of the Order's quest is Sterling Chase, once a morally rigid enforcer of Breed law, now a warrior fallen from grace, whose biggest battle is the one he wages against his own savage nature. With addiction beckoning him toward eternal darkness, Chase's path to redemption has never seemed more out of reach. But when his eyes meet those of Tavia Fairchild, a beautiful witness who identifies him at the scene of a mission gone terribly wrong, Chase finds himself drawn to the woman--and convinced she is something much more than she seems.
Pulled into a vortex of intrigue and danger she can neither resist nor understand, Tavia is uncertain whom to trust. And while everything sane and logical warns her against getting close to Chase, she cannot deny that the handsome, deeply haunted male stirs something primal and ravenous within her. But even as she surrenders to her cravings, nothing can prepare her for the shattering truth of who--and what--she truly is.
As the Order's enemy mobilizes for the battle of the ages, Dragos and his Minions unleashing a hell on Earth like nothing ever seen before, Chase and Tavia are thrust into the heart of the violence. With time running out and the streets running red with the blood of innocent lives, both Breed and human, together Chase and Tavia must find a way to defeat Dragos once and for all--or die trying.

Finally I get to the book I've been dying to read the most in this series since Sterling Chase has been introduced. Honestly I was afraid that it wouldn't stand up to my expectations, as much long awaited books happen to be somewhat of a disappointed. But this book was amazing. Easily the best one in this series.

Chase has been struggling with bloodlust, and has walked away from the Order. His suicide sacrifice not only saved the Order but has landed him in human custody.  At the police station he attempts to warn the senator and his personal assistant, Tavia that Dragos is a danger to them. But he realized too late that Dragos has already gotten to the senator and has made him a minion. Using his strength, Chase breaks out of his confinement and tracks down where the police are holding Tavia and takes her back to the last place he ever wanted to go, his old Darkhaven. There Chase realizes that Tavia isn't who she says she is, even if she doesn't know it herself. Instead she's something impossible, a female Gen One Breed. Knowing the Order will be able to protect her and to give her help he contacts a friend to hand Tavia over to the Order, fully intending to disappear. Only he can't seem to get her off his mind or stay away from her.

We learn some pretty good stuff in this book. Like Chase hasn't been facing bloodlust recently, no he's been fighting it for the past six years, ever since his brother had died. At least for me that one made my jaw drop. The book also focus on Jenna's dreams or as the Order has discovered actual memories from the Ancient. That kept me almost as intrigued as Chase's story. In the memories, they discovered that at one point the Ancients had been at war with an immortal race. A race that has the very symbol of the breedmates, and are believed to be the fathers of the breedmates. Which this is my only real disappointment with the book. They kind of left that open and never resolved it in this particular book.

The Dragos story arc is finally resolved in this book. But not before he had unleashed horror and terror into the world and let them know of their existence. The ending of the book shows a new world for the Breed. One of them living among humans knowing their existence. I had originally planned to end the series here. The first half of the series was amazing, but the second half didn't seemed as good to me. But this book renewed my love for the series, and have me curious about the somewhat spin off with the next generation of the Breed.

Rating: 4/5