Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian

Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian

He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabriel Maxwell's deepest fantasies.  But nothing about this night--or this man--is what it seems.  For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly.  In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed--a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.

Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren.  A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind--and the unwitting humans existing alongside them--from the mounting threat of the Rogues.  Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.

Here, in the arms of the Breed's formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all...

I really wanted to love this book...It is a paranormal series with a lot of books already out and more to come.  However this book was just meh.  I liked the beginning quite a bit and really had high hopes but the action soon seemed to lag and once Lucan and Gabrielle came together it just wasn't my fave.  Lots of sex, very little emotion.  I couldn't really see why either of them came to the conclusion that they loved the other...and at the end Gabrielle indulges in some major TSTL behavior that really soured the whole ending and left me glad the whole thing was over.  

Gabrielle is a photographer who is drawn to stark architecture.  Lucan is a Gen One Breed and leader of the warriors who try to keep Rogues from spreading chaos and death.  The two meet when Gabrielle witnesses six rogues murdering a man--rogues that Lucan is hunting.  When Gabrielle tries to tell the police what she saw, they are convinced she is crazy as there is nothing found in the alley to support what Gabrielle claimed she saw--no body, no blood, nothing.  Lucan finds Gabrielle to try to compel her to forget everything when he notices a birthmark identifying her as a potential Breedmate.  

What follows is a mediocre beginning to a series that I really hope gets better.  I will say that there were some bright spots in the book--I liked the interactions between the warriors when they are together and I loved Gabrielle's friend Jamie but I don't expect him to be in future books (I wouldn't mind being wrong about that though!).  This book is different from some in that it does show that just because these men are warriors with amazing skill sets they are not immune from injuries or death...something that brought some emotional depth to the book at times.  While there were times I though about putting the book down, some thread of interest kept me turning the pages and I am going to give the next book a go.  I'm not ready to drop the series yet as I saw the potential for something really great--it just wasn't realized in this particular novel.