When Darkness Falls by Shannon Drake

3 out of 5 stars

Better than the first book in the series, Beneath A Blood Red Moon, but once again the story seemed to fall apart towards the end of the book. The ending itself was extremely frustrating, and left more questions than answers.

I love the character of Lucian. He is a near-perfect anti-hero. However, his heroine Jade ended up coming off as somewhat whiny. The secondary characters (Jade's friends from her writers group especially) were for the most part entertaining, and provided a bit of much needed comic relief.

For me, the single biggest problem was the fact that Lucian & Jade's future was left pretty much up in the air. The ending to BABRM while extremely far fetched in it's resolution, at least left little doubt as to the path that Maggie & Sean were on. Where as with this book, the reader is left feeling more than a little cheated out of a proper ending.

Beneath A Blood Red Moon by Shannon Drake

2 out of 5 stars

I have conflicted feelings about this book. First off, I'm a huge fan of Heather Graham/Shannon Drake (SD is Heather's pseudonym). And there were several aspects to this book that I really liked; I thought the historical flashbacks were the best part of the story. I also loved the character of Lucian who is the main focus of the next book in the series [book:When Darkness Falls|176789]. However, the things that I found irritating about the story began to pile up towards the end of the book. HG/SD is known to have a fondness for sappy dialogue, which doesn't bother me in small doses. Here, it was used to a near constant distraction. Also, the climax of the 'mystery' (which really wasn't a mystery at all, since the killer was made obvious by about 20 pages in)seemed a little over-the-top.

I plan on continuing on with the series, and am hopeful that Lucian's story will not leave me disappointed.