Name: Darkness Dawns
ISBN: 9781420118612

Dianne Duvall

   In this dazzling, sensual novel, Dianne Duvall beckons readers into a world of vampires, immortals, and humans with extraordinary gifts…where passion can last forever, if you’re willing to pay the price…

   Once, Sarah Bingham’s biggest challenge was making her students pay attention in class. Now, after rescuing a wounded stranger, she’s landed in the middle of a battle between corrupt vampires and powerful immortals who also need blood to survive. Roland Warbrook is the most compelling man Sarah has ever laid hands on. But his desire for her is mingled with a hunger he can barely control…

   In his nine centuries of immortal existence, no woman has tempted Roland as much as Sarah. But asking her to love him is impossible—when it means forfeiting the world she’s always known, and the life he would do anything to protect...

Immortal Guardians #1

Darkness Dawns

In this dazzling, sensual novel, Dianne Duvall beckons readers into a world of vampires, immortals, and humans with extraordinary gifts. . .where passion can last forever, if you're willing to pay the price. . . Once, Sarah Bingham's biggest challenge was making her students pay attention in class. Now, after rescuing a wounded stranger, she's landed in the middle of a battle between corrupt vampires and powerful immortals who also need blood to survive. Roland Warbrook is the most compelling man Sarah has ever laid hands on. But his desire for her is mingled with a hunger he can barely control. . . In his nine centuries of immortal existence, no woman has tempted Roland as much as Sarah. But asking her to love him is impossible--when it means forfeiting the world she's always known, and the life he would do anything to protect. . . "These dark, kick-ass guardians can protect me any day!"--Alexandra Ivy

Lover of Romance 

This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance

This review may contain spoilers, so fair warning, upon reading the review.
 
Darkness Dawns is the first book in this series, and this is an author that I have been wanting to pick up for quite a while. As she also has a good sci-fi series she has started to write. I feel like I had read this book or at least started it last year or maybe even the year before as the first few chapters felt so familiar but I decided to finally read this all the way through and I am glad that I did. I really liked this style of paranormal that this author writes and I was so intrigued by the way in which it was written The story does draw you in pretty quickly, it starts off with the heroine saving her hero who is an immortal guardian, and gets jumped by vampires and is being staked to the ground. Sarah is brought into the world of vampires and immortals and introduced to a love she never imagined. There is a bright connection between Sarah and Roland, but they also have a fight on their hands with an enemy who is one of their own but commands an army of vampires. I really got a kick out of this story and saw the way that this author introduces the reader to the world. The world-building is light and not plot-heavy which I really enjoyed. Sometimes the first books can be a brain overload, but in this one, it was more balanced with the story and the romance which I really enjoyed, There is plenty of action and some fun character building and plenty of laughs along the way. There is a bond between these immortals that was beyond charming and I am eager to explore this series and see what more this author delivers. A great start to an intriguing paranormal series!

Totally Addicted to Reading

This is my first time reading Dianne Duvall and I assure you it will not be my last. I had a great time listening/reading to Darkness Dawns, the first book in the Immortal Guardian paranormal romantic suspense series. I heard so many great things about this series, I knew I had to try it and I got a copy of the audiobook through the audible romance package to do so. Darkness Dawns is filled with enough steamy romance and action to keep you entertained.

The book introduces readers to a group known as the Immortal Guardians who spend their time protecting innocent humans from vampires. What made these guardians special was despite being infected with the vampire virus, their unique DNA makeup they a spared them the madness that normal humans experience from the infection

I enjoyed the unique world and interesting characters the author created. The sarcastic banter between the immortals and the humans who worked with them had me laughing whenever these moments occur. 

The main characters Roland and Sarah were a treat. Sarah is a music professor. Because of her bouts, with insomnia, she sets out at dawn to prepare the soil for her garden. While she is busy turning the soil something moving at high speed crashed into her and knocks her to the ground. She believed it was a wild animal, but then on hearing the hunter’s conversation she realised it was not an animal. She took it upon herself to carry out a rescue, with, no form of backup other than her trusty shovel. I loved that scene.

She is smart, brave and strong. She definitely held her own.


Roland, a member of the Immortal Guardians is an anti-social 900-year-old immortal who prefers to work alone. He has issues with trust having been dealt the sting of betrayal several times. Compassionate but, deadly, he has proven to be a worthy adversary. I loved seeing him in action.

Someone wants him dead, which was evidenced by the several attacks made against him by an army of vampire minions. He has no idea why, but he along with his team members are determined to find out and put a stop to it. Besides this, readers are treated to another story, which had no bearing on what was happening with Roland. I am curious to learn more.

The romance is what you would expect in paranormal stories, fast paced. Despite the quick pacing, I enjoyed it. I believed they were a perfect fit. 

Narrator
I found the narration by Kirsten Potter to be excellent. She did a great job with the voices, especially the variety of accents. I enjoyed how she captured the emotions and expressions of the characters.

Conclusion/Recommendation
Darkness Dawns delivered an exciting, suspenseful, romantic story. Fans of paranormal romance and urban fantasy will enjoy this offering. I have the second book Night Reins in my audible library.

Kristen

3.5 stars.

This story is one of those brainless, fun romance romps that reads so much better if you can turn off your annoying brain. Luckily, I was quite sick when I read it, so my brain wasn't really working anyway :)

Sarah lives alone, wants nothing to do with her family, and doesn't seem to care for friends, either. She's a music teacher, doesn't want to use cell phones and risk brain tumors, and eats only organic food. Maybe I don't need to add that she isn't my favorite character of all time. 

So Sarah is awake in the middle of the night and digging herself a veggie garden when she hears screaming and manly voices talking about killing people. When she sees a man staked into the ground, she immediately sets to saving him armed with only a shovel, knocking the bad guys out and getting the man to safety. She helps clean him up and discovers his name is Roland. And she thinks he is very, very sexy. 

And cue the insta-love. Sarah helps him with his wounds and makes him organic pizza when he wakes up, and they bond over their mutual love of organic food. Throughout this very long day, she discovers he is a vampire... or actually an Immortal Guardian, which is only different from a vampire in this story in that vampires actually go crazy and only live about 2 years while Immortals can live for, like, thousands. 

All in all, it was fun. I'm going to read the second book because I did enjoy this. I love it when authors do something different with vampires that I've never seen before. I haven't read every paranormal romance series out there, so this may have been done before, but it was new for me. 

I didn't like the parentheses that contained added sentences. These sentences were things like: "Roland knew exactly what to do. (Seth had told him earlier.)" Just unnecessary. This could have been added to the sentence or been worked into another one. Or it could have been stricken entirely. This is just lazy writing, plain and simple. It drove me crazy. Other than that, the writing was pretty well done. Like I said, if you just need to turn off your brain for a day, this is a good option.

Darkness Dawns Immortal Guardians #1