Blinded in Iraq while in the Marines, Matthew Cage never realized the key to unlocking his forever midnight world was within arm’s reach.Dawn Richards first saw her best friend’s older brother via webcam. For years, she secretly desired him, keeping her fantasies hidden from the rest of the world. After a downward spiral, Matthew secluded himself in his prison of … in his prison of darkness, but his sister and friends helped him find his way. Having worked hard to become a Master Instructor in Close Quarters Combat, Matthew’s world seems normal until tragedy strikes.
When Dawn’s life is threatened, Matthew refuses to let her deal with it alone. Can Dawn trust him to protect her? Will Matthew finally believe he can have sunshine in his world?
more
This is a fantastic book! The story gripped me from the beginning, and never let me go. The characters are realistic and very provocative. I love all of them all including the secondary characters.
Dawn Richards is a professional chef who is part owner of a bakery with her best friend, Lauren Cage. Lauren has a brother, Matthew, who is in the military. Dawn has crushed over Matthew ever since she met him. However, he never notices her as anything but his sister’s friend.
Matt is overseas when he and his men run into a field of land mines. He and two other men are the only ones who survive. Unfortunately, Matt is injured over one side of his body. It takes him a year to recover. In spite of that, even though Matthew can’t see, his personality is so impressive that it rarely seems to affect his actions.
The plot is absorbing and not the usual run-of-the mill story. The characters are charismatic and endearing and, Dawn and Matthew have great chemistry together. This author is so skilled that I felt I was in the story and experiencing everything they did.
I found Darkness Before Dawn to be a positive story with impressive characters. I, absolutely, plan to read other books by this author.
First of all, this book is very professionally presented and you’d never know it’s a debut release from a new author. The formatting is beautiful and the editing and proofing are really well done. Clearly a lot of work and love went into this book to give it a professional appearance.
If you want the short version:
Likeable. Lots of drama, fun to read. Good characters. Well-edited. Predictable but still addictive.
If you want the detailed version:
Editing/Proofing:
5 stars
Found only a couple minor typos, nothing that distracted from the reading experience.
Formatting:
5 stars
Beautiful!
Cover:
5 stars
I love that it’s not quite like every other romance cover out there. It’s pretty and still relevant.
(Also: The title is perfection! It describes the book simply in both metaphorical and literal senses.)
Continuity:
4 stars
Character design:
4 stars
Characters are fairly well done. Not always perfect continuity with the personalities but it’s Book 1 in a series and they’ve got room to grow but still the reader gets at least the gist of who they are and a bit of what they’ve been through. Astute readers probably get a peek into what’s to come for the other characters too. 😉
POV:
5 stars
The reader is treated to rotating POVs, first person. There’s never any confusion as to who is speaking, it’s done flawlessly.
The Story:
The book started out FULL of action, drama, regret and pain. It is a brilliantly tragic opening and sucked me right in. That’s about all of the military action there is, however the lives of the main characters are forever changed as a result of those moments so I’d still say it’s okay to deem this a military romance or military drama.
From the first few pages, I can easily predict how the whole book will play out, so I won’t give any originality or unpredictability points, but that’s 99% of media these days. What matters is that despite this, I wasn’t bored. In fact, I was hooked – I liked the characters and wanted to know all that I could about them. I love that baking and cooking are prevalent and the MCs all move to the South. These are all things I could relate to and just made it that much more dynamic and fun to follow, with little side adventures and food to dream about. 🙂
Some of the sex scenes… they’d start out with plenty of heat but inevitably there’d by a cheesy line or something that I just couldn’t quite get into. I did overall appreciate the sex scenes though, for not exactly being the same old that I usually find. Robbins manages to describe them a bit differently than everyone else, which is refreshing.
The last fifteen percent or so kind of dragged for me. After being so hooked and unable to put it down for the first seventy-plus percent, it took me a little effort to get through it. I probably could take or leave the last bit. But ultimately am really impressed that this is a debut novel, it seems Robbins is a natural and I hope she keeps writing. She’s made me a fan.
I’d give the story… somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars for keeping me hooked, but lacking originality. Overall, I’d give the book as a whole 4 stars.