Come the Dawn (The Dangerous Delameres Book 2) #review

Author -  Christina Skye
Amazon buy -  Link
Genre -  Regency Romance
Pages -  416
Published -  July 18, 2015
Series -  The Dangerous Delameres
Style -  3rd Person
Sexual Content -  2/5
Language -  irrelevant

SYNOPSIS

India, the beautiful and headstrong sister of Come the Night's hero, Luc Delamere, fell in love with the rakish Devlyn Carlisle when they were just children. Innocent love bloomed into deepest passion when they reconnected as adults. But soon after the two are joined in a secret wedding bond, the Napoleonic Wars tear them apart. Then, betrayed by a comrade-in-arms, Devlyn is pronounced dead.
India swears to continue her life alone, without the only love she's ever known. But now he's back – with the cold eyes of a stranger. Plunged deep into the mystery to discover who betrayed Devlyn, India vows to make the lost earl remember all they once shared, no matter how dangerous to her reputation – and her heart.

REVIEW

Well, I did read the first book in this series, Come the Night, starring Luc Delamere and the adorable Silver St. Clair.

And just finished the second novel, Come the Dawn, which stars Luc's younger sister, India.

Both are stand-alone and both are interesting, with equally interesting characters who must (in both stories) overcome certain obstacles before the consummation of true love can (and will) occur.

The author (aka Roberta Helmer) writes well and seems to know enough about the time period to convincingly plunk me down in Regency England for the duration, so there is that.

Although I had a hard time believing that a six-year old girl was capable of not only speaking so eloquently but also possessing the wherewithal to think, feel, and surmise as much as she did, which tells me the author is less in-tune with children than she is with the Regency period of our history.

Both stories gave me a gloomy, sinister feel when I didn't think it was all that necessary, which sort of lends itself to my having had difficulty really and truly enjoying either novel.

And, it doesn't appear as if we'll ever get to read Ian's story, which is a pity because he is a major player in this second novel and I became increasingly interested to find out how his love life would pan out.

The reason for low-balling this one has a lot to do with the author's tendency to bog down the plot with too much detail, too much not-interested, and too much WORDS.

This second novel wasn't as suspenseful as the author would like me to believe considering my ability to figure things out much earlier than the story led me to believe.

Which just made the plot device (Napoleon's diamonds) peter out a lot sooner than there were chapters left to read.

And yet the characters are engaging, the plots themselves are somewhat riveting, and as I said in my Amazon review, despite the wordiness that makes me want to stop reading about half-way through, I still forced myself to finish in order to discover how everything turns out for the two leads.

It shouldn't take a reader 2+ weeks to finish a Romance novel, and yet it occurs more often than I care to admit.

If you're tired of reading the same-old, or have had your fill of YA/NA repetition, or if you are getting fed up with elementary-level storytelling, I would recommend you try one of Christina Skye's novels for the refreshing change alone.

And yes, if a Book 3 becomes available, I'll read it because as mentioned above, I'm curious about the youngest Delamere and his love life.

P.S. why do I want to say comeS?