Review: Midnight's Daughter

Publisher: Penguin's Books (2008)
Format:  Mass Market Paperback | 384 pages
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Description: "Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. Unlike most dhampirs, though, Dory has managed to maintain her sanity. Now Dory’s vampire father has come to her for help— again. Her Uncle Dracula (yes, the Dracula), cruelest among vampires, has escaped his prison. And her father wants Dory to work with gorgeous master vampire Louis-Cesare to put him back there.

Although Dory prefers to work alone, Dracula is the only thing that truly scares her—and when she has to face him, she’ll take all the help she can get…
"
After reading the first two books in the Cassandra Palmer series and finding all the info-dump a serious detriment to the progression of the story I was pleasantly surprised by the beginning of "Midnight's Daughter". It seemed more clean, it jumped straight to the action/ plot and more importantly it lacked the annoying "info-dumpiness" (maybe because the story is set in the world of the Cassandra Palmer series). Also I liked Dorina a lot more than I liked Cassandra. Even if she was more stereotypical, more the heroine that we see in these kinds of books (strong, though, etc...) I thought she was more "action ready" than Cassandra. I gave the author a serious thumbs-up when I read about the uncontrollable fits of rage experienced by all dhampirs; I thought that was pretty cool and original (at least to me).

Unfortunately it when downhill from there. Dracula has escaped and he's out for Dorina's blood (she's his niece, if you can believe it...). And Dorina's fathers' blood. Well, basically her entire family's blood. Oh and he kidnapped Dorina's best friend, Claire.

There were lots of things the author could have done with this premise, and at the beginning it seems like she's going to set Dorina free to live a great deal of danger and adventure in her quest to recapture Dracula. But halfway through we're presented to additional storylines that confuse everything and then Dorina's group devises a trap and the rest of the book is spent waiting for Dracula to fall into it. It gets boring really fast and it also gets... that's right, info-dumpey, since they don't have much more to do than talk. I don't get why the author can't see to get past certain plotlines. She could have had her trap work or not work and go from there, but no.

Additionally, the author decides to make Claire appear randomly and compleately out-of-nowhere with an unbelievable tale of how she escaped. That part was too ridiculous for words.

Overall this book is an improvement over the first two in the Cassandra Palmer series, but I didn't like it that much even if it had a promising start.

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