Review: Dawnbreaker

Reviewed by Jen
 

The third installment of the Dark Days saga picks up a couple of months after the conclusion of Dayhunter.  Mira has returned home to Savannah with Tristan in tow and she is ready to expand her vampire family to her favorite minions Knox and Amanda.  But the naturi have no plans to let her live in peace. They’ve followed her back to the States and they’re trying to kill her before she stops their queen from returning to Earth.  Vampire hunter Danaus comes back into her life, just in time to join her for the latest big battle against the naturi… back in Machu Picchu, the same place where they tortured her all those years ago.

We don’t see much of the secondary characters featured heavily in the first two books. Tristan stays in Savannah during Mira’s trip.  We don’t see Nico or Ryan. And we only get small cameos from Jabari and Sadira.  But we do pick up some new faces, including Nia, the naturi princess, and Stefan, a vampire with aspirations to join the coven.

So here’s what I got out of this book: It really sucks to be Mira.  She is proving time and time again that she’s a pretty stand-up gal.  She takes her duty very seriously. She is willing to put herself in harm’s way to protect those she is loyal to.   And she knows that her attempts to save humanity (and the nightcrawler race) will likely end in her death, and she does it anyway.  But all this comes at great personal expense.  Her mentor, Jebari, is a rat-bastard.  Rowe, the naturi leading the effort to free the queen, relentlessly pursues her. And perhaps worst of all, she must acquiesce to being a puppet, to the whims of both Jebari and Danaus.

And speaking of Danaus.  Why the hell can’t these two recognize what they have together? We see over and over, through Mira’s thoughts and actions that she cares deeply for Danaus.  And he seems to have to remind himself that she is the enemy.  These two need to get it on already… in a big way.  Three books is plenty of time for me to wait. I definitely need some payoff. (And not just physically, by the way.  These two have a deeper connection.)

So when all is said and done, we get our big battle, more reveals about what Danaus is, and big questions about the future of the naturi.  And while the book may be over, there is obviously plenty of story left to go. 4 stars.

P.S. If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, you don’t want to start with this one. It won’t make sense and you won’t have the same investment in the characters. This is not meant to be a stand-alone. Trust me.