Break of Dawn-Chris Marie Green

Break of Dawn
Chris Marie Green
Ace, Sep 2008, $14.00
ISBN: 9780441016297

Deep below the paved streets of Los Angeles lies the lair of master vampire Beneditke. There they wait living the life of luxury while biding time before coming above ground as performers as they were in a previous life thanks to plastic surgery helping them modify their appearances. Eva, once the Master’s favorite, kidnapped her husband Frank and turned him into a vampire while their daughter Dawn Madison has become Beneditke’s new obsession.

Jonah’s mission is to destroy the Undergrounds and their Masters, but Dawn has misgivings whether she can trust him any longer. Unknowingly she is already attached to the Master who is wearing a human guise. A betrayal forces Dawnawn out of her refuge at Jonah’s hiding place while her mom and another vampire trick her into going to the Underground. Circumstances put Eva Dawn in a tenuous spot regarding Dawn, but she eventually helps her daughter escape. Dawn returns to Jonah, who has located the underground and intends to kill all its monstrous occupants. Dawn feels pulled in two directions, but must choose which side she is on.

This ends the Vampire Babylon trilogy (see MIDNIGHT REIGN and NIGH RISING), but though complete also sets the stage for a second set of novels in the urban fantasy saga. Chris Marie Green has written a powerful character driven thriller that keeps the audience riveted from start to finish with a need to know what happens next as there is always a shocker every few chapters. The reason this tale and its predecessors are so good are the belief that vampires live in and under Los Angeles and in this case the Underground seems like a real place based on a different perspective of the vampiric mythos. However, from the first page of the first novel to the climax of BREAK OF DAWN, the heroine with her trials and tribulations makes this trilogy well worth reading.

Harriet Klausner