The Awakening : A Vampire Huntress Legend

Rating:
Summary: It just keeps getting better
Review: The Vampire Huntress series gets better! Ms. Banks' take on the levels of Hell and vampiric politics is quiet refreshing while still keeping to the overall "traditional" feel of vampire fiction. The undercurrent of "Romeo meets Juliet" as seen in the characters of Carlos Rivera and Damali Richards adds to the appeal of this great series.

My only complaint still lies in the overly used "hip hop"-style street slang that is constantly used in place of "normal" dialogue. While I understand the author's wish to convey the background of the characters through their speech, it's hard to think of Biblical and other supernatural references as being legitimate when the characters sound like they should be on MTV's "The Real World". Granted, the Buffy series wasn't much better with the use of California-Valley Girl slang, but at least the conversations were only peppered with "Buffyisms" and did not take over the entire dialogue.

Rating:
Summary: The work continues to astound!!!
Review: This books takes right up where the first one left off and doesn't miss a single beat. The characters seem so real that you'll refer to them by name to people you meet. I do!!!

I'm glad to know that there will be more in this series. L.A. is doing a great job of making vampires as real as the rest of us.

Rating:
Summary: A better sequel
Review: This series(to me, at least) was officially saved by the second installment of the Vampire Huntress series. Banks tightened up the structural and craft stumbling blocks I, the reader, encountered in the first installment and created a delicious world that Buffy could have been had religion and Bible prophesies been thrown in and if Buffy was black(come to think of it, this series is less like Buffy and more like Angel). But for doubters like me who hesitated to pick up the rest of the series do to disatisfaction with the first book, The Awakening will most definitely change your mind. Picking up where Minion left off, Banks starts this roller coaster ride in the POV of Carlos; a to-die-for master vampire with a lingering conscience and a love jones for Damali. Banks was excellent in hightening tension, weaving together plot points and making a slightly cynical romance reader actually feel the passion simmering between Damali and Carlos. The mythology was alot easier to understand and the characters all stood out in this book as different entities as opposed to the semi-stock characters they seemed to be in Book One. A few dashes of humor in the book helped as well. But now, I'm hooked, and hopefully, you will be as well.