Book Review: Dark Kiss (Nightwatchers #1)

Release Date: May 22, 2012
Author: Michelle Rowen
Publisher: HarlequinTeen
Length: 348 pages
Source: eGalley via NetGalley

I don't do dangerous.  

Smart, über-careful, ordinary Samantha-that's me. But I just couldn't pass up a surprise kiss from my number-one unattainable crush. A kiss that did something to me...something strange. Now I feel hungry all the time, but not for food. It's like part of me is missing-and I don't know if I can get it back. 

Then there's Bishop. At first I thought he was just a street kid, but the secrets he's keeping are as intense as his unearthly blue eyes. If he's what I think he is, he may be the only one who can help me. But something terrifying is closing in, and the one chance Bishop and I have to stop it means losing everything I ever wanted and embracing the darkness inside me.... 

NIGHTWATCHERS 

When angels and demons must work together, something beyond evil is rising...

    

Review:


Characters: The character of Samantha in this book is interesting. Usually in novels where a human and a supernatural being start some sort of adventure, the human is usually that, human, however this girl gets turned into a creature that can only be described as being like a succubus. However, in this book they are called Grays. Anyway, this interesting twist definitely added major character development for Sam fairly early in the book. Sam was a character that started out shy and timid but then quickly does a 180 in personality. There are still some shy and timid moments for her but for the most part she becomes an extremely fierce and strong character. This sudden change of character was both shocking and too quick. Even though I eventually got used to this change, it seemed slightly unnecessary. However in grand scheme of things it's didn't take away from the book. The other main characters, such as Bishop, Kraven, Carly, and Natalie are all great characters, however I feel that if I start talking about them I will give too much away.


Romance: Just like with most of the books I review there is a romance in this book. There really isn't any real love triangle in this book, though near the end there seems to be a hint at an upcoming one. I am greatly relieved when there isn't a love triangle in a book, at least for the start of a series because it will give me a break from reading about some hopeless girl or boy and their ongoing struggle of who to choose, even though the reader already has a fairly certain idea of who it will be. I liked the romance between Samantha and Bishop, because it wasn't some kind of passionate all consuming romance that started too quickly. It was slow and steady and in the grand spectrum, happened at just the right time.


References: Just a quick thought on some of the terminology used in this book seemed similar to some of the things from the show Charmed. Things like "the Source" "the Hollow" and "nexus" may not be original to the show but are really fun to read in this book and made reading this book all the more fun to read.

Predictability: I would like to say that this book was completely predictable, but it wasn't. Even when I had clues to lead me to one conclusion, the author would twist the answer to catch you off guard, which was totally something I liked. The things that were left unsolved in the end was probably way too much. The answers that we didn't have, though a great pool to start speculating from left too much open. I know this is a series, but given that this is the first book I thought that there would be far less unresolved aspects. I appreciated the unpredictable nature that the author added to this book and I hope that she continues with it throughout this series.


Ending: It seems that lately the books that I read that are a first in a series have a sort of plateaued ending, as a opposed to the cliffhanger ending that leave me begging for the next installment as soon as possible. The ending wasn't bad in the slightest, and was actually a sweet and sentimental ending. Part of me is happy that this book had a plateaued ending, because the wait until the next book in this series is less aggravating and arduous. Usually I don't like plateaued ending because there isn't much left unsolved, so with this book, though here seems to be too much left unsolved, due to the nature of the ending, it's sort of cancels that out.

Rating:

While this book has many positive characteristics to it, I felt that it lacked in a few areas and could have been improved but overall I thought that this was a great story and the beginning to what I hope to be an amazing series.