Lara Adrian "Midnight Awakening"

Do you think the hardest part of writing a series is coming up with the titles? Well, maybe not. The third book in the Midnight Breed Series is my favorite so far. I've decided I like my alpha hero's more inscrutably powerful and less woman hating (due to some terrible betrayal of course). Tegan fits the bill. He's cut off emotionally after the love of his young life was brutally abused and returned to him as a minion of a rival vampire.

Elise is similarly tortured after her son was lured into turning rogue by a drug propagated by a bad vampire. Her brother-in-law had to kill her son in front of her when he attempted to attack his own mom. Not fun. She has decided to leave the safety of the enclave she lives in and start killing the human minions of this bad vampire. Unbeknown to the Warriors, Elise has joined their little war against the rogues. Tegan is not amused that this unskilled breed-mate human woman has put herself in so much danger. And then, he's strangely attracted to her too, go figure!

I expected not to like Elise even if I was already caught up in Tegan story, so the surprise for me was how much Elise developed as a character. I liked the references to her attempt to train her body in prep for this undertaking, and her poise in Berlin. It all won me over. When Tegan finally gives in to his love for her, I believed she deserved it.

I've bought into the series, and enjoyed these characters more than the average duck.

Vampire Romance Series 2007: 4.5 of 5 crescent moon marks.