Maggie refuses to believe her brother is dead, so she follows Miles' girlfriend and is quickly drugged, kidnapped and transported to a lost kingdom of vampires calling themselves the Black Dawn. She manages to escape and meet her 'soulmate' whom she learns is Delos, the heir to the kingdom and also a Wild Power.
Again, the plot development is rapid in these later-series books, and character development suffers. I don't buy Maggie's 'relationship' with Delos and her ability to influence him so quickly away from his entire upbringing. However, the series as a whole has been decent and I'll probably finish it out. ( )

The eighth installment of L.J. Smith's Night World series, in which a secret world of vampires, witches and shape-shifters exists alongside the human one, Black Dawn follows the story of Maggie Neely, a feisty teenage girl who stumbles upon a hidden kingdom in the mountains of Washington state, and discovers that Delos Redfern - the vampire-prince who rules it - is her soulmate.

Determined to locate her missing brother Miles, Maggie instead finds herself captured by slave traders, and bound for the Dark Kingdom. Between escaping with her blind companion Aradia, Maiden of all the Witches; discovering that she is the long-looked-for Deliverer, the prophesied liberator of the human slaves of this strange land; and meeting her true love Delos, who is not only the lord of Black Dawn, but one of the four Wild Powers who will either prevent or bring about the approaching apocalypse; Maggie has a lot to do...

The second of Smith's Night World books to focus on the Wild Powers, Black Dawn continues the ongoing narrative about the approaching millennial apocalypse (this was published in late 1997), begun in Huntress. Unfortunately, with its divided narrative, unconvincing "romance" between Delos and Maggie, and a "lost kingdom" in the mountains that would strain even the most devoted reader's suspension of disbelief, this is not one of the stronger titles in the series. It's fast-paced, and my love of the series carried me through, but I probably wouldn't recommend it on its own merits. Then again, as the eighth in a series, who would be reading it on its own? ( )

I came upon this book by chance and loved it the moment i started reading it. Its great for those who like some light reading. Smith does a great job -- she takes away the dreariness which normally accompanies such genres. The romance is subtle and surprisingly refreshing. Clearly written and minus excessive blood and gore. ( )