REVIEW: Awakening – Darklight Series Book 1 – Sean Ian O’Meidhir & Connal Braginsky

Nathen, a newly created vampire, diagnosed with autism, and his boyfriend, Cameron, a telepath, find themselves swept up into a corporate plot between two seemingly rival corporations working together to create monsters.

In so doing, they uncover a piece of tech they take to their technomage friend whose skills surpass their own. However, in exchange for information, they must assist in rescuing an ally—a rescue mission that brings them face-to-face with the darker side of this world.

Reviewed by Linda Tonis

Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team

We pick up after book one where Syn, Nathen and Cam were successful in ending the cyberattack against the children’s hospital. During that assignment they did learn a few things i.e. there are two companies Paradigm and the company Nathen works for Impetus.

They are creating monsters and Nathen knows that if he goes against the company his life will be over.

During that assignment they came upon a piece of tech that would require a technomage to figure out. They go to Thom, a mage that helped during the cyberattack at the hospital and he is willing to help for a price. Someone close to him has been kidnapped and he wants Syn, Nathen and Cam to find her and bring her home.

Syn is friends with the missing woman, Kat, as well as Thom from one of her hacker groups but never met them in person. The difficult part is to find who took her and it would require a lot of research. In the meantime, Cam reveals his past to Nathen, the death of his mother at the hands of a fae, in addition to sharing some of the monsters he dealt with in his past, a pedophile, a man who drugged and forced a young woman to be a sex slave and a priest who was less than godly.

Cam was sure that when Nathen discovered what he had done he would leave him but that was not the case, Nathen stuck by him. Now to rescue Kat and find out more information about the two companies creating cybernetic vampires. As many vampires as they create, they kill, any who do not follow the rules are exterminated even more reason that Nathen must appear to be a loyal employee.

Nathen and Cam’s relationship grows, and Cam has become addicted to Nathen’s kisses since his saliva is an aphrodisiac, but he is also addicted to Nathen’s bites. With Cam’s power of reaching people’s minds and ordering them to do what he wants a bedroom is not necessary for them to have sex, Cam manages to empty a room and bring people’s minds to anything other than what they are doing.

When they discover that they are both infiltrated with nanites capable of receiving and sending information to Impetus they try to mind read rather than speak out loud. It is like Big Brother watching every move they make.

When Kat is discovered, they realize they will need help, so they hire two mercenaries, Sefu and Gryphon and the rescue is ready to proceed. I won’t reveal anything more in this review since it is something you must read for yourself, and what a read it is.

This is a series that must be read in order since each book ends with a cliffhanger, not the kind of cliffhanger that would make you want to throw the book out the window but enough to let you know the story is not finished.

Explicit sex, violence, secrets, lies, romance, suspense, torture and sexual assault.