Another sweet and sexy vampire story that I enjoyed despite the simplistic and predictable plot. It was a bit too sappy for me, though, and the frequent POV changes, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, were a little confusing, so I'm dropping to three stars for this installment. Side note: As with the first story, the ending here seemed to drag on, bypassing a few natural stopping points. I'm having a hard time with the star rating on this one. The overall impression the book left me with was "meh," which would normally earn it 3 stars. But then I think back and there are so many things I loved about the book as they were happening. So I think I'm going to ramble on a bit about those and see what rating I end up talking myself into.First, I enjoyed Ryu. I loved how willing he was to drop everything and go to Daniel's side as soon as he was told Daniel needed him. I loved how devoted to and patient with Daniel he was even when Daniel kept being so blind for all those years. His history intrigued me also, how happy he'd been and how tragic it was that they didn't know that he could Turn his partner.I also loved that there were a few times when I rolled my eyes and nearly put the book down at how predictable I thought it was about to be... and then got delightfully pleasantly surprised when I was proven wrong.The first of these was when Daniel leaves on his own, while he knows he's being hunted, to go get dinner. When he pulled into the parking garage is when I about put the book down thinking this was like every horror/action movie ever: dumb person goes alone into a dark parking garage and gets attacked. I loved, LOVED how this scene turned out. I love that it's what helped Daniel start giving himself more credit again, and how confident and awesome he was again instead of whiny and scared like he'd been up till then.The next one was the kidnapping at the zoo. After the argument between Daniel and Ryu about Daniel being able to take care of himself, they seemed to be disconnecting, and Daniel would never have ever let Ryu try to keep him safe ever again if he'd made it out of there just fine. It was weird to me to be glad that a character got kidnapped, but he needed it! And he didn't get hurt. And it got him and Troy (and Vance and Nigel) to talk again, so it was good.I think my favorite scene of the book was when Ryu came into the building at the end using his sword to cut his way through all of the vampires between himself and Daniel. That scene was so vivid and so amazing!I guess maybe the problem I had with the book is that in spite of these amazing moments, the rest of it was filled with what came across to me as a disappointingly tepid romance. (I may change my mind on that after re-reading, but that's my impression this time) And I still don't really understand the significance of Daniel giving up his blood. Yes, Titus/Cal had been the only other to whom he'd willingly given it in the past, but wasn't that also true of sex? Or did i miss something somewhere that said Daniel had sex with other people, but no long-term lovers other than Titus? That's possible, and if so would ease some confusion.But still, confusion or not, the whole giving Ryu his blood thing just made me frustrated with Daniel. It made him seem selfish and petty and made all of his avowals of love for Ryu seem like they meant less.Ugh. Okay, so overall, an okay book. There were some awesomely amazing parts, and some parts that frustrated me. I will definitely read the 3rd book.
