Re-read Review: Night World: Daughters of Darkness

Daughters of Darkness (The Night World Book 2) by L.J Smith
UK Publishing date: 19th March 1997 (my edition was published later, but I don't have it with me to check and it's not on amazon. I'd hazard a guess at early to mind 2000s)
UK Publisher: Hodder children's books


"The Night World isn't a place. It's all around us. It's a secret society of vampires, werewolves, witches and other creatures of darkness that live among us. They're beautiful and deadly and irresistible to humans. Your high school teacher could be one, and so could your boyfriend. 


The Night World Law says it's okay to hunt humans. It's okay to toy with their hearts, it's okay to even kill them. There are only 2 things you can't do with them.
1. Never let them find out the Night World exists
2. Never fall in love with one of them


These are stories about what happens when the rules get broken."


This is the second in the Night World series, but what's so great about these is that you don't necessarily need to read them in a particular order. Sure, the books are all gearing up to the (yet to be published) final book, and some of them include characters which then appear or are mentioned in later books, but you could easily read some of them as stand-alones.


This book contains one of my favourite ever male characters; Ash. He's fantastically written. He's so...misunderstood, and sarcastic and cool. He's kinda like Damon, but blonde and a bit less evil. In fact, that's something L.J Smith really excels at; her characters. She must've written tens and tens of them by now, in the Night World books alone there must be...30ish fairly prominent characters? But they're always different in looks, demeanour, behaviour etc. I always love reading her characters because she creates them so well. I often completely fall for her male leads. 


The story basically revolves around three sisters; Rowan; Kestrel;Jade. They're beautiful, and dangerous and they've run away from home. They move to a small American town to stay with their Aunt Opal where they hope they wont get found. However when they get there, Aunt Opal's not looking so hot. She's been staked. Mary-Lynette and Mark are brother and sister, who befriend the girls and together they  try to solve the mystery of Aunt Opal's probable murder-before the murderer can get the girls, who share the same secret as Aunt Opal.  Whilst they're off making suspect lists, and speculating, Ash the girls human-hating, ruthless but gorgeous brother has been sent to track them down and bring them back home. 


M-L and Ash's relationship is one of the best things about this book. Their mutual dislike turns to shock, which turns to reluctant acceptance of the bond they share. I love the three girls as well, their personalities are so well developed and contrasting.  Rowan is gentle and thoughtful, Kestrel is fierce and hard, and Jade is sweet and naive. 


The ending is a bit predictable but still enjoyable; this is definitely one of my favourite books of the series and I would recommend it to fans of LJ Smith's other works, or people for whom the vampire/werewolf books haven't become boring. To be honest, this book is one of the originals, and the premise is so interesting that anyone who loves YA Paranormal Romance should give it a go! They're really cheap too!!