Love is Darkness (Valerie Dearborn #1) – I think I’ve found a new series that’s *dear* to me!

Correction, I think I must thank Val for throwing it in my face how good this series is.  This is the best 99 cents I’ve spent yet! Of course the price has increased to a whopping $1.99, but I can assure you it’s worth breaking the bank for this one.

Valerie Dearborn has spent her life trying to avoid her destiny.  As a child, she watch her mother meet a tragic end at the hands of a vampire.  That unfortunate turn of events changed her life forever.  Her father, with a help of Jack—a young man left orphaned after a vampire slaughtered his family as a child—have made it their life’s mission to hunt these evil bloodsuckers. They’re pretty good at it too! Or so they think.  Except one night they bring Valerie along and she meets Lucas, a 1600 year old vampire King who knows that Valerie is no ordinary human.  She is part Empath, a believed-to-be extinct species that makes vampires vulnerable to their emotions. Using her family as leverage he recruits Valerie to help him on his quest to find others like her, as well as werewolves and fae, who were supernatural adversaries to vampires long ago.  He also really really wants to get in her pants because he’s been emotionless for so long and wants to “feel” again.  Let’s not stray away from that not so little plot point.  Of course Valerie wants a normal life, but it is obviously not in the cards, or this book would be really boring.

Valerie as a heroine is pretty cool.  I have no real complaints since I understand that this is the first novel and she hasn’t yet gone down the road of self-discovery.  I sense a lot in store for her as the books continue.  This series is not in first-person tense, but Valerie’s own humor and personality shine through in a number of scenes.

I admit that for a while I just hadn’t been coming across super sexy badass vampires.  If they weren’t of the “emo” variety then they merely talked the talked.  Well, Lucas walks the walk.  He has a valid reason for his attraction to Valerie.  None of that “I have lived for 900 years and never met a strong, fearless woman who speaks her mind!” and similar lame, unbelievable crap.  It’s attraction on a cellular level, literally.  Their chemistry is all kinds of crazy.  I was liking Jack in the beginning, but after Lucas it just doesn’t compare for me.  I think what really impressed me was his display of complete power and dominance against enemies.  He is King and he knows it, he doesn’t doubt it, and it’s his way or the highway.  He could be as ruthless or as gentle as the moment calls for and he makes no apologies.

As for the writing, while I love Caroline Hanson’s style, there are a number of spelling and formatting errors which interrupts the flow for me at times.  But this tends to be pretty common for the cheap or free Kindle books.

There isn’t a whole lot of story, but I see a lot of promise.  The character interactions are very intriguing and there are a number of action-pact scenes to keep things moving while not being overbearing.  While Love is Darkness not surprisingly has “dark” undertones, there’s a lot of humor as well which is always a plus for me.

There are a few sex scenes as well so this is certainly NOT of the YA variety, but if you’re in the mood for a more mature story (or about as mature you can expect a college girl moving abroad to be) then this one may be for you.  Favorites don’t come easy for me, but I really connected with this series and was left wanting more…a lot more.  Highly recommended.