Dark Awakening

By: Kendra Leigh Castle

Narrated by: Peter Bradbury

Acclaimed for her richly imagined paranormal romances, Kendra Leigh Castle begins her Dark Dynasties series with this sizzling tale. Shapeshifting vampire Tynan MacGillivray has been ordered to find a human seer who can give his clan the upper hand in a devastating war. So he tracks down Lily Quinn, and together they discover a new world of danger, sensuality, and powers that cannot be controlled.

©2011 Kendra Leigh Castle (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“Castle’s world-building is superb.” ( RT Book Reviews)

I liked it - wish they had the rest on here!

If you could sum up Dark Awakening in three words, what would they be?

Hot Scottish Hero

What other book might you compare Dark Awakening to and why?

None. The story was unique.

Which character – as performed by Peter Bradbury – was your favorite?

Tynen, the hero. The actor was SO good with the Scottish accent. I loved it. And he conveyed just the right passion. Perfect.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I'm not sure what a tag line is, but I would describe it as unique, romantic, and darkly magical

A great new Series - don't miss it !!

Hot sexy low blood Scottish vampire who is a Hunter is sent to find a 'Seer' for his Queen in the hope to save their dynasty of vampires but what he finds is much more than he bargains for.... love and, hopefully, salvation. However, the Hunter becomes the hunted and by far more than one enemy.

This book has romance, passion, shape-shifters, a plot that carries you along with it and, of course, the good v evil guys. The narrator did a great job of the many accents needed.

If you love the vampire romance genre then you won't be disappointed and me, well I'll be waiting for Book 2!

A Vampiric Awakening

What did you love best about Dark Awakening?

The book takes you into a class driven race of vampires. A social structure of the medieval times. It's this class system of vampires that draws into the story. But the opening scene does grab you up from the beginning.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Dark Awakening?

Lilly standing up for and trying to save him.

Which character – as performed by Peter Bradbury – was your favorite?

Lilly I enjoyed her strength, despite it all.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Remembering that this a romantic paranormal romance, enjoyed the way Ty and Lilly come together. Although it seemed to take a Ty a little longer.

Any additional comments?

If you are looking for a little something different check out this book. I think it is worth a credit

I wish the next one was here

This was a good story. Good twist on the vampires legend. The twists and turns of the story were really well done. I'd get the next one if it were available on audible. hint!

Peter Bradbury did a great job with the narration. Loved the way he sounded.

Wow!!!!

The Male narration was really good with a lot of different accents. His voice you can get lost in. The story was different and kept me interested easily. I feel this is a Great read or Listen to story. I didn't want it to end and felt the story could keep going easily.

A New Favorite Author!

I have found a new author to add to my favorites list! I loved all the different vampire dynasties in this story. Each different dynasty had their own special abilities or power. Most of them set up as monarchies and each believing they are better than the next. As with most monarchies, they had a class system that they were stuck in. If you weren’t highblood, then you were lowblood and the best any lowblood could hope for was servant status for the highblood.

Lily Quinn is believed to be a seer and the Ptolemy dynasty want her. Tynan can shift into cat form, so the Ptolemy consider him a lowblood and they send him to go and bring her back to them so they can use her physic gift to see who has been killing their people. When Tynan finds Lily, she is more than he expects and now he isn’t sure he wants to bring her in.

As the story goes, it just keeps building and building. There is such a mystery around Lily that other vampire clans start to take notice, now Lily and Tynan are running for their lives.
This was a great story and was like a whole box of Godiva Chocolates. It had a variety of different of different well rounded characters. It also had great character and world building. I really enjoyed the whole thing and cannot wait to read the next in the series.

The Narration Review
This audiobook was narrated by Pete Bradbury and I loved his voice! He had a really good story telling voice and a host of different voices and accents for all the characters. He definitely added to the enjoyment of this story. He was a pleasure to listen to!

Good Story, ok Narrator

I enjoyed the story though the feelings between the hero and heroine was simply a pulling with not much depth behind it. I never got the absolute dread feeling when something bad happened, telling me that I didn't connect enough with the main characters to be very upset when something happened. The events had little dramatics and not enough comic relief.

I am sure I could not narrate better than Mr. Bradbury but I found that compared to other narrators, I was just waiting for the book to be over so I could pick a book with another narrator. I found the long pauses annoying. The hero seemed to have a never ending angry voice where some of the thing he said, I thought, shouldn't have been said with so much anger or annoyance. I also feel that typically a woman, in general, has more range to handle a woman's voice and man's voice quite nicely.

Great Story....Great Narrator

I really enjoyed this book and when it was done, I immediately wanted to hear more. The only reason that it did not get 5 stars from me was that the story itself became a little bit plodding right through the middle. But overall, it was a great story and a great listen....not the typical vampire story redone. There were fresh elements, but it stuck close enough to the "normal" vampire lore to be recognizable. There was, surprisingly, a lot of suspense and the combination of the author and narrator kept me in it until the very end.

Something new in vampire tales

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was a decent amount of time well-spent. The story line was different from other vampire novels as it creates a spin in vampire society. Even immortality and strength is not imprevious to bigotry and casts systems.

If you’ve listened to books by Kendra Leigh Castle before, how does this one compare?

This was my first Kendra Leigh Castle book, I am always ready for a good series to begin. I am looking forward to continuing with this one.

Have you listened to any of Peter Bradbury’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No never heard Peter Bradbury's narration but he gave each character life which is good.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

I may depending on the actors seems like it would make a better TV series. Puts me in mind of V with a little Xena the Princess Warrior.

This one was a surprise !

After reading several negative reviews, I really wasn’t expecting to like this book much; boy I was wrong. The things that other reviewers hated, I really liked. For example, some reviewers complained about the fact that the Hero was a vampire that could shapeshift into a cat, I thought it was a cool idea. In traditional vampire lore, vampires can shift into a bat, so why not a species that can shift into a cat? I liked the way that the author had different groups of vampires that have different gifts; it was a refreshing idea. Too many paranormal, or any kind of romance, repeat the same ideas that so many others have written about, that I admire an author who can invent something new. I also thought the way the author stressed that there were prejudices over social class and species differences, was a disturbing look at our human world, today. In current times, people tend to look into the past and are appalled by the injustices exacted on others due to race and/or social and economic differences but, in reality, even though some aspects of this have improved, as a species, we have a long way to go before we can claim that all humans are treated equal. The author focusing on this type of ugliness, was a much needed reminder of our human shortcomings. This story was unique enough to keep it interesting, with enough familiarity to keep the story from being too confusing. I was disappointed that there is only one other book released, in the series, however.

As far as the narration, I thought that Mr Bradbury did a pretty good job. My only complaint is that he sometimes speaks too slow and I find myself getting irritated and thinking, “hurry up and get to the point!”

In my opinion, this book would have definitely been worth the price of a credit but, double bonus, it is included in the romance package so my monthly credit could be used on another book. Hit Download, I really think you won’t be disappointed.
-V from Kansas