Jaime's Review of Darkness Before Dawn by JA London

Darkness Before Dawn

J.A. London

Paperback: 368 pages

Release Date: May 29, 2012

Publisher: Harper Teen

ISBN: 006202065X

Source: ARC from the SF/Sacramento Book review

Rating: Really Liked

From Goodreads. This electrifying new trilogy blends the best of paranormal and dystopian storytelling in a world where the war is over. And the vampires won. Humans huddle in their walled cities, supplying blood in exchange for safety. But not even that is guaranteed. Dawn has lost her entire family and now reluctantly serves as the delegate to Lord Valentine, the most powerful vampire for miles. It isn’t until she meets Victor, Valentine’s son, that she realizes not all vampires are monsters.... Darkness Before Dawn is a fresh new story with captivating characters, unexpected plot twists, a fascinating setting, and a compelling voice. Written under the name J. A. London by a talented mother-son team, the trilogy is perfect for fans of True Blood and the House of Night and Morganville Vampires series.

If you read the synopsis above you’ll see it compared to the House of Night series and let me tell you right now this is nothing like the HON series at all! This is soo much better! I was a little scared to read this actually because it’s a dystopian vampire story and I just read Julie Kagawa’s The Immortal Rules and I was worried I’d be comparing the two the whole time. There are some faint similarities but Darkness Before Dawn was a really good read!

The MC Dawn has been put thru the ringer losing her family and now she has this job she doesn’t want. I mean who would want to work with the very things that killed your family? But she doesn’t have a choice and I like that she has an inner strength and that she’s pretty rebellious. In the beginning I really liked both of the love interests (yep it’s a love triangle but no insta –love thank goodness) but by the end of the book I was definitely in love with Victor  gorgeous, tall, dark, mysterious, piercing blue eyes, loves old musicals, loyal, and vampire what’s not to love hehe. There were some things that were pretty predictable but overall I enjoyed the story and I’m very much looking forward to the second book!

I chose a passage between Dawn and Victor.

The lights are out, but a little moonlight is coming in through the balcony doors. It creates a safe haven for the sharing of secrets.

“Tell me a story. It’ll help me go to sleep,” I say.

“Once upon a time----“

“No,” I interject. “A real story. About you.”

“Once upon a time—don’t interrupt--- there was a vampire who wanted to touch the sun.” He combs his fingers through my hair. “One night he was walking through an alley when he thought he caught a glimpse of the sun wrapped in shadow… only it was a girl in need of rescuing. The first time he gazed into her blue eyes, he knew she had the power to destroy him. But he ignored the warnings, because she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.”

My breath is uneven. “But he must have seen a lot of girls in four hundred years.”

“He had. But none of them appealed to him like she did.”

“This vampire and this girl…do they get a happily ever after?”

“I don’t know. I told you that vampires lack imagination. So I don’t know how it ends.”

Or maybe he’s just too kind to tell me. Because he also told me that things between vampires and humans never end well.

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