The Awakening

I enjoyed this one even more than the previous two. Jae and Junichi are much more realistic characters with a more organic relationship. While I do like Haru and Nino a lot, Haru's weird hang-ups got a bit repetitive. I think this is down to the fact that Jun is not the leader of anything so there was only a little bit of the weird hierarchy that this series has established in Japanese Vampires. The biology in this book is interesting but not something you can really think too much about. Jae's “repressed aura” or whatever doesn't make a lick of sense especially how he's also purebred - but with a repressed vampire maternal lineage and a very distance paternal lineage. It's just not something you can really explain, we'll just have to take Nikole's word for it. It's her world, anyway.

I also found it was interesting that Nikole completely skipped over Cellina and Giovani's story besides what was in the last (2nd) book. At the end of that book, I was sure they were going to be the main couple in the next book. I'm glad because I thought it would have been missing the mark to shift to a MF couple after two books of MM.

Overall, a nice enjoyable read with two very likeable characters. Nikole has a refreshing take on MM relationships where these characters actually try to communicate openly, not be super repressed like you see in too many other MMs (especially historical), without it coming across as sappy or ridiculous.