Review - Dawnkeepers

Title: Dawnkeepers
Author: Jessica Andersen
Publishing Date: 2009
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: C+
Sensuality: Hot

Dawnkeepers is book two in Jessica Andersen's The Final Prophecy series. Finding out that he is a Nightkeeper came as something of a huge shock to Nate Blackhawk. He grew up orphaned and was in and out of foster home after foster home. He even spent some time in juvenile detention and then cleaned up his act and became a success business man, running his own video gaming company. Now, however he is spending his time trying to save the world. To say he doesn't believe in all the prophesy nonsense is an understatement.

Alexis Grey wants desperately to live up to the expectations she has set for herself. She wants to become advisor to the king and she wants to hunt down the seven Mayan artifacts that are going to help the Nightkeepers protect the world from complete annihilation. She and Nate will have to work together for the Nightkeepers to be sucessful, but that is easier said than done. Nate and Alexis don't see eye-to-eye on anything.

I like Jessica Andersen's writing style. She has a way of weaving a story by using good characters who seem all too human. She also crafts multiple story lines that will be converging together at some point in the series. The world building and plotting is top notch and one of the better aspects of the series. However, I still think she is perfecting her craft. There were a few minor things that annoyed me. Everyone in the book refers to having a conversation as a 'convo'. I could see maybe one character calling it that, but all of them? It was too much. Also, the Nightkeepers where having a difficult time deciphering what the prophecy meant, when as a reader I figured out the twist fairly early on. These are intelligent people. Someone else should have been able to figured it out too.

My main problem with this story was Nate. He was a big asshat and Alexis truly deserved better. I suppose by the end of the story he finally wakes up and gets with the program, but until that happened it was brutal. Nate doesn't want to be attracted to Alexis and he doesn't want to be a Nightkeeper. He is in denial, denial, denial and after a while it can grate on a readers nerves. Alexis on the other hand, is constantly allowing Nate the power to hurt her. I just felt like she deserved better and really should have given Nate a proper slap down. I generally prefer my heroes to know what he wants and go after it.

I like that there is almost a ring of truth to this series. It doesn't seem all that far fetched that something like this could happen. With the Mayan calendar and ancient artifacts, it almost makes one wonder. This is an interesting series, I just wish the romance was a little more to my taste. I will keeping my eyes open for the next installment Skykeepers that releases this August.

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Nightkeepers

Title: Nightkeepers
Author: Jessica Andersen
Publishing Date: June 2008
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: B
Sensuality: Hot

Nightkeepers are the warriors who are destined to keep the demons known as the Banol Kax from destroying the Earth at the end of the Mayan calendar in the year 2012. Striking Jaguar, known as Strike, needs to accept his crown and lead his motley crew of Nightkeepers, what is left of them, into battle against a makol who is already trying to free the demons. Leah Daniels is a detective for the Miami police force who is trying to find out who killed her brother. There have been a series of deaths that look like sacrifices. She becomes the killers next intended sacrifice until Strike finds her and saves her life. Now, they are inexplicably drawn to one another and form an alliance to defeat the makol, Zipacna.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with Ms. Andersen’s debut novel. Nightkeepers has a very well developed synopsis and the world building is terrific. There is a lot for the reader to take in and understand in this story, with lots of characters to keep track of. The majority of the characters all have back stories and for the most part Ms. Andersen did a good job of introducing these characters. Occasionally, in the middle of the story after they all came together, I would have to flip back to be reminded of exactly who was who. This is to be expected though, with the elaborate cast of characters.

The main weakness to this book was the actual romance. I really liked the characters Strike and Leah, but I didn’t feel like their relationship was given enough screen time in the book. Their relationship is described more or less as a fated one and so therefore the reader has to take the authors word for it that they are meant to be together. The reader does not get to see these two characters fall in love. However, both Leah and Strike’s characters grew and changed over the length of the story. I just would have liked to have seen more growth with them as a couple instead of individually. I am very interested in what Ms. Andersen has created and will definitely be watching for the next book in the series.

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