Review: Ashes of Midnight by Lara Adrian

Posted June 10, 2009 by Tracy in Reviews | 8 Comments

A woman driven by blood. A man thirsting for vengeance. A place where darkness and desire meet…

As night falls, Claire Roth flees, driven from her home by a fiery threat that seems to come from hell itself. Then, from out the flames and ash, a vampire warrior emerges. He is Andreas Reichen, her onetime lover but now a stranger consumed by vengeance. Caught in the crossfire, Claire cannot escape his savage fury–or the hunger that plunges her into his world of eternal darkness and unending pleasure.

Nothing will stop Andreas from destroying the vampire responsible for slaughtering his Breed brethren… even if he must use his former lover as a pawn in his deadly mission. Blood-bonded to his treacherous adversary, Claire can lead Andreas to the enemy he seeks, but it is a journey fraught with danger–and deep desire, unbidden desires. For Claire is the one woman Andreas should not crave, and the only one he’s ever loved. A dangerous seduction begins–one that blurs the line between predator and prey, and stokes the flames of a white-hot passion that may consume all in its path…

Andreas Reichen is not quite himself. His fury over the death of his family has him literally lighting him up. His anger is manifesting itself in flames that are gradually taking over his body and his soul. He is out for revenge against the man who is behind the deaths of his family and he won’t stop until that man is dead.

Claire Roth, the wife of the man Andreas wants dead, used to be Andreas’ lover. It has been 30 years since Andreas has seen Claire and there is more than a boat load of animosity between the two. But as they spend more time together they find that the two of them can’t seem to be apart. I was very much looking forward to reading Andreas’ story. I had read about him in the past Breed books and wanted his story badly. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the end result.

I still really liked Andreas and I liked Claire (to a point) but for me the story had too much of the “we want to be together, but we can’t be together” and I understand people sacrificing for each other and their love but there is a point where for me it just gets slightly old. Unfortunately this was the case with story for me.

There was also the issue of Claire’s blood bond with her husband. Because of the blood bond she was aware of where her hubby was and could more or less track him. This being said the opposite could be true. One of the major bonuses of the blood bond, according to her hubby and his evil overlord, is that they can lure The Order to one spot and do them in. My question….why wait for them to come to you? You know that your wife is doing the horizontal mambo with someone else and that the person is most likely, if not most definitely, with The Order…yet you wait for them to come to you? Blow up their friggin headquarters for crying out loud! Don’t wait for them! You’re evil…work with it. Ok, not that I wanted that to happen at all, but it just seemed so obvious to me. They’re evil…evil people think of that kind of shit! Lol

Ok…now you probably are thinking that I didn’t care for the book at all. Not true. I liked huge parts of the book and it really did have some great parts. I thoroughly enjoyed a little view into the other members of The Orders lives and as always Ms. Adrian’s writing style is addictive. Now if I could just deal with those other issues…

Rating 3.75 out of 5


Tagged: ,

8 responses to “Review: Ashes of Midnight by Lara Adrian

  1. I don't think I'm reading this one. I don't think I would have picked up the one beofre this, but everyone else seemed to be so I did too! I don't know, I haven't really been a huge fan of this series to begin with. I think there is too much of what you said “we want to be together, but we can’t be together”in them, especially so in the first book and I even commented to her about it. However, I think she's a great writer.

  2. I've enjoyed this series from the most part, but I did struggle with the pacing in the last book, but this one was better. I think I liked it because I was so interested in Andreas story.

    For me it wasn't the "we want to be together we can't be together" as Claire's naive belief that Andreas would give up his revenge for luh-uh-uve! That disconnect didn't make sense to me.

  3. Mandi – I've enjoyed the series so far. Hopefully you will too.

    Amy – So you've read the whole series and have not cared for it all that much? A lot of people like to compare it to the BDB series but I don't think they're similar. And you're not a a BDB fan are you?

    Rosie – I think you hit that nail right on the head. Luuuuve will conquer all. Um, not. lol

  4. Great Review Tracy!

    I've been waiting for Andreas' story since we were first intoduced to him in 'Midnight Awakening' (Which is still my fave in the series). My thoughts are that there will be so much potential for a tortured soul hero senario after the events of 'Veil of Midnight'. We'll see, I haven't read it yet.

    I find Lara Adrian to be a real hit or miss for me…But it looks like that it might be a miss after reading your review.

    😀 VFG

  5. Oh no, I'm a BDB fan! I think Ward's Vamps are the only ones I truly love to read! It's also her relationships, there's a realness there that is fascinating.

    When I read the first Lara Adrian book, I thought it had some similarities to the BDB in that they both have a sort of brotherhood. But it seems that alot of series since then have that factor. Otherwise I don't think they are similar at all. I'm just not into the action that is in them. There are several series that I stopped reading because I don't like all the fighting! That type of paranormal just isn't for me.

  6. Tracy, I was quite disappointed with this installment too. Didn't quite connect with Claire, had questions about the world building, blood bond and as you said the evilness and lack of movement on Roth's part was… hmmm… I did like Andre. But as a whole not my favorite book in this series.

  7. I love this series but was a bit disappointed in this last book too. Has similar issues as you had Tracy. I could not connect with Claire, not at all! And Andreas was just not the Andreas I thought he would be after reading about him in the other books and waiting for his story. However, the last part of the book did make up a bit for the disappointment…

    Hugs,
    Pearl

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.