Dianne Duvall – Darkness Dawns

The first book in the Immortal Guardians series, published February 1, 2011.
Genre: paranormal romance
Cover: very nice



Once, Sarah Bingham's biggest challenge was making her students pay attention in class. Now, after rescuing a wounded stranger, she's handed 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.


Sarah is an imsomniac working in her garden at night, when she hears people fighting. Quietly investigating, she finds a naked man staked to the ground, and two young men bent on tormenting him some more. So she hits them with her shovel and frees the naked man, taking him home with him to call an ambulance, the cops, whatever. But he won’t let her, and convinces her to just bandage him up, after removing the spikes from his hands.
But before he can tell her why he was crucified to the ground on her property, he passes out from blood loss. And so she is left with a naked man on her futon, dirty and bleeding. Sarah starts cleaning him up and bandaging his wounds, even though they are no longer bleeding and healing. How is that?

And with that little adventure, Sarah is drawn into the war between Immortals and vampires, as the vampire responsible for this won’t let her life after helping his enemy. Roland will do whatever he has to protect her, as she saved his life. He would have burned in the sun in just a few more minutes. Other immortals gather to help clean up this unusual large nest of vampires, while two of their oldest are on a search for someone else. Someone calling in their minds, crying for help.


I have read many series with immortals, warriors, fighting bad vampires, but there is always room for more good series. And this is definitately one of them. I liked Sarah, and she doesn’t accept anything on face value. When she thinks Roland is just another vampire, like the ones they are fighting, she runs. Or rather, tries to. She demands explanations and she will not cower in a corner when they are attacked again, she will fight alongside them. And when he tells her his back ground story, how he became an immortal, she does question things as well. Things he has always accepted and took for granted.
Roland has always been a loner among the Immortals, not even wanting a human servant to take care of his daytime needs. No one has been invited into his home, they don’t even know where he lives. But now that he has Sarah to protect, he will do whatever is necessary, even sacrificing his home and sanctuary. He has been in love twice before, and twice he has been betrayed by the woman. So does he dare to fall in love with Sarah now? Sure she is different from those other women, and it was centuries ago, but does he dare risk his frozen heart to thaw?

Yes, I enjoyed this book a lot, and will certainly read more books in this series. I loved all the main characters and the other Immortals, and would love to find out more about them. There is a very intriguing explanation for their origins.

9 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian