Midnight’s Daughter (Dorina Basarab #1) – My socks have been rocked!

“”I ran out of stock around midnight and dropped by a place, got some Chinese.” I hoped he meant takeout….”Mu-shu pork” he told me indignantly.”

I held off from immediately jumping into the Dorina Basarb series, a spin-off of the Cassie Palmer novels by Karen Chance, for a couple of reasons:

1)I have some quirks with the Cassie Palmer books that I feared could spill over into this series

and

2)I wasn’t sure if I wanted to invest in a series with such a long wait between novels.  In my perfect world, I’d get two books per year when it comes to my fave series, not one every TWO years.

So it took quite a while to get around to this, but I am so glad I finally did.

This spin-off series centers around Dorina Basarab, a dhampir (vampire/human hybrid) assassin. Not quite enough of either species, Dorina’s kind is rare and doesn’t fit anywhere in either society.  It doesn’t help that she is subject to rages that cause her to black out and endanger not only those around her, but herself as well.

It turns out she is the daughter of the great and powerful Mircea Basarab, and he needs her skills to help capture her uncle and his brother, Dracula, who has escaped from prison.  Crazy and dangerous, this is a tall order, so Mircea also adds another master vampire to the mix, Louis-Cesare.  The goal is for Dorina and Louis-Cesare to work together, but we all know the results when you try to mix oil and vinegar.

This book was a lot of fun. This series has beaten the odds and has become an instant favorite, regardless of the lag time.  It’s missing my biggest annoyances with the Cassie books: an irritating love triangle  and Cassie herself (I’m not just a fan, sorry).  Dorina is much more likeable heroine for me. I laughed, I cried (okay, not really), I QUOTED!!

Chance really knows how to write compelling and downright delicious male characters. Louis-Cesare has shot up on my list of book crushes. He’s an amazing fighter, and the chemistry with Dorina is crazy good! It doesn’t feel like your run of the mill relationship like with so many other novels.  It’s dynamic, it’s got room to evolve, he isn’t invisible, and Dorina actually can take care of herself quite well.  It feels really natural, or about as natural as you can expect for supernaturals.

Another pleasant surprise was Mircea.  After reading the Cassie books we’re only used to Mircea the lover and powerful Senate member.  In these books we get to see Mircea the father. While we see the Senate member too, I really appreciate this perspective of him because it adds more depth to the character for me.  I like him more and more because we see more of his vulnerability here as opposed to the Cassie books. When it comes to Dorina, you can tell that he doesn’t have all of the answers, even when he tries to save face . It’s a subtle chink in his armor and I love it!

This is about as great of a start as one could hope for.  I finished this book and couldn’t wait to dive in to the next one!  I think it’s needless to say that I highly recommend this one.