Review: Midnight Sun by Rene Lyons

Title: Midnight Sun
Author: Rene Lyons
Genre: Paranormal romance
Grade: B-
Reason for Reading: Honestly, it was because of a bit of a blog spat between the author and Sybil. Also, she compared herself to JR Ward.

Synopsis: When things go bump in the night, Allison Parker bumps back. As the resident Ghost
Hunter in a quiet, rural town, she’s thrust into the nocturnal world of the Templars.
Embracing the night, she finds a place where she belongs.
Damned by God, Sebastian of Rydon knows only blood and death. After eight hundred
years of merely existing, he learns what is to live after Allie comes bursting into
his life. Her spirit guides him out of the dark.
Caught up in a web of hate and revenge, they search for love as their world is torn
apart.
My Thoughts: This is kind of a hard review to write, so I’d just like to state upfront that I did enjoy this book, despite my quibbles. It’s also my expert opinion that some of my issues with Ms. Lyons’ style will disappear as she writes more. But there were things I found troubling, and the things I disliked I disliked a lot.

But first the good. Rene Lyons has created an interesting world, and I enjoyed her take on vampires. And while these boys did have oodles and oodles of angst, they were definitely fun to hang out with for a few hours. But where Ms. Lyons manages to do a better job than some of her more established paranormal romance author sisters is in writing dialogue that sounds like what actual people would say. There was no overt and stupid use of outdated street jargon, nor did she resort to the whole “I am vampire, therefore I am alergic to contractions” thing that some other popular authors have resorted to. Lyons also writes some very compelling violent scenes. When she wants to, she can make the reader–or at least this reader–feel every cut and scrape of a blade against flesh, and it’s very chilling. And she’s definitely got the art of putting in hooks to ensure readers will keep reading the series. Unfortunately, she takes a clue from J. R. Ward and gives us several plot points that won’t be resolved unless we keep reading, and I am beginning to be thoroughly irritated with that sort of blatant manipulation.

And since we’re talking about things that irritated me, I really wasn’t sure quite what to make of Allie. I liked that she was, indeed, a ballsy, sassy chick who was pretty kick-ass in her own way. She wasn’t the stereotypically badly written paranormalk nut that seems to populate a lot of these books, and I appreciated that she acted and talked like a real woman. But I thought she veered very close to the line of being a Mary Sue. After all, she meets the Templars when Constantine and Rafael, two of the other Templar vampires, rescue her from some random renegade vampires who wanted to make her a midnight snack. This is apparently enough for the boys to decide she’s their BFF, and she becomes their mascot, their April O’Neil, if you will. (In fact, I couldn’t get the Allie as April O’Neil image out of my head, and you should all consider yourselves lucky that I rewrote my original review to take out 98 percent of my gratuitous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles references.

As for the romance, honestly, it didn’t work for me. I honestly didn’t see the chemistry, and I thought that Sebastian and Allie really needed more scenes together. In fact, at one point I was irritated that Lyons chose to have one crucial scene take place between Allie and Constantine instead of Allie and Sebastian.

Speaking of things that needed to be explored more fully, I thought that the premise of vampires on the road to redemption and acceptance by God was a good one, but i wish more had been done with it. For example, the vampires just sort of casually lob off random renegade vampires without a qualm, and they do some pretty violent, even cruel things to humans. It could be argued that everyone involved deserved what they got, but I’d have liked to see someone get more torn up over the violence.

I also thought that, while the world building showed some promise, it too was a bit inconsistent. The Abyrri, who are supposed to be templars who aren’t on the road to redemption, get mentioned, as to an order of kickass female vamps, but nothing is ever done with these references and I thought they could have been caught in order to give us more Allie and Sebastian.

The other reason I wanted to read this book was because I read a few comments where the author compares her books to the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and, yes, there are some similarities. Five giant, kick-ass warriors? Check. They all live together in a mansion and drive kick-ass cars? Yup. One of them seems to be a tad on the gay side? Uh-huh. Dumb-ass nicknames? Y halo thar, Sage and Rogue and C. But I think that Lyons does a better job at writing female characters, even if Allie is kind of a Mary Sue. And there aren’t millions of extraneous subplots here.

Final verdict: You know, there’s nothing especially new here, but what there is is certainly enjoyable enough for me to read the next books in the series.