Book Review: Shadow Rising by Kendra Leigh Castle

Shadow Rising
Author: Kendra Leigh Castle
Series: Dark Dynasties, book 3
Publisher: Forever
ISBN-10: 1455511641
ISBN-13: 978-1455511648
Source: From NetGalley
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For more information visit Kendra Leigh Castle’s website


Ancient Secrets, Dark Passions . . .

As one of the Grigori, a noble vampire dynasty shrouded in mystery, Ariane has spent her life hidden away in the desert. Like all of her kind, she is a watcher, fated to observe, forbidden to act. Yet when her best friend Sammael vanishes, she defies all rules and flees her safe haven to bring him home.

A shape-shifting assassin for the House of Shadows, Damien Tremaine is hired to locate Sammael. His hunt for the wayward Grigori leads him to Ariane, the rogue vamp who stands between him and his bounty. Damien never lets emotion interfere with his work, but a single touch from the sexy, beguiling vampire shatters his self-control. Drawn together by their common goal, they begin an alliance of necessity that soon becomes one of desire. But when the secret at the dark heart of the Grigori comes to light, Damien and Ariane must make a choice that could bind them eternally . . . or tear them-and everything they care about-apart.

Damien Tremaine is sarcastic, rude, egotistical, pigheaded sexy cat sigh and also a shade. Which means he steal, lies and kills for a living and is extremely good at it. So it was no big surprise when I fell in love with him. I love the bad boys for some reason. There is always the ones that everyone says "he was such a jerk I hated him." I reply " really I loved him." Damien was one of those alpha heroes, who borders on bad guy.

Damien' s group of friends ,whom are a very rare few that he's let close to him, are all interesting characters. All of them have already been introduced in the previous book and two of them were the heroes of those books. As always I loved Vlad, I'm sure I've said it before I can't wait till he gets a book. Yummy, Yummy man candy!

Ariane is very innocent, and trusting. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that with her timid personality that she can be such a good swordsman. She even got the better of Damien once. Sometimes her innocence is a bit much, she can be a little annoyingly naive and a tiny bit on the whinny side. She fit the role she had. She lived a sheltered life ware everyone around her resented her and viewed her turning a mistake.

She only had the one friend living amongst the Grigori. When that friend went missing she knew she must find him at all cost. So when she was told she would not be part of the retrieval party she knew escape would be the only option. I think all of this has validated her insecurities and it shows in her personality.

Over all the whole book was nonstop action. There were many heated scenes maybe not as many as is have liked but a good amount. The same underline problem was still there that carries on through the first two books but this book opens a whole new issue that may cause the dynasties to band together in order to fight this new threat to them all. It was a bit predictable, you knew were the story was going the whole time, at times it was a little ok yeah knew that, but over all I enjoyed it.

I cannot wait till the next book. I wish it was Vlads book but I think it will be Lily MacGillivray's friends book. Either way I'm sure it will be good.
My Rating:

Reviews for previous books in the series:
Dark Awakening
Midnight Reckoning