ARC Review--Dark Kiss by Michelle Rowen

I don't do dangerous.  Smart, über-careful, ordinary Samantha-that's me. But I just couldn't pass up a surprise kiss from my number-one unattainable crush. A kiss that did something to me...something strange. Now I feel hungry all the time, but not for food. It's like part of me is missing-and I don't know if I can get it back. Then there's Bishop. At first I thought he was just a street kid, but the secrets he's keeping are as intense as his unearthly blue eyes. If he's what I think he is, he may be the only one who can help me. But something terrifying is closing in, and the one chance Bishop and I have to stop it means losing everything I ever wanted and embracing the darkness inside me.... NIGHTWATCHERS When angels and demons must work together, something beyond evil is rising...

I received this ARC from the publisher for review via NetGalley

Michelle Rowen's Dark Kiss was quite the tale. I am slowly getting interested into the demons and angels kinds of books, having read a few already, so I decided to give this one a try.

It was interesting, yet for some reason I just didn't totally fall in love with it. I didn't hate it either. It was just one of those books I kept reading because I wanted to see the outcome--even though it's open-ended--but by the end I wasn't feeling compelled to read more next year.

The characters were really good, Samantha is the smart girl, always careful and all. She had a little lapse awhile back where she was caught shoplifting, it was after her parents' divorce. Bishop of course is the mysterious angel guy that is hanging around town for some reason. I really liked Kraven too, he was a demon that was helping the angel out. 

Yes, demons and angels are working together in this one. There's a threat brewing in the city of Trinity that is a threat to both Heaven and Hell, hence the temporary union/truce. There's really dark forces at work involving the grays--a thing that can steal the soul out of humans with a kiss. They become like ravenous vampires almost--when they're feeding, when they aren't feeding they seem to be almost normal.

Samantha is kissed by one at the very beginning and becomes one in return. Yet, she's different. She doesn't have the hunger that most of them have. She's more in control of herself.

But there's still the big bad to consider. Who is it and what they want. And Samantha finds herself at the center of it all.

The pacing was fairly good too! Samantha begins to question who's telling her the truth, Bishop the boy she just met who's an angel, or the grays who want to take her in, including the leader. At times like this, I felt that Sam was a little naive, but it was pretty hard to figure out who's being truly honest and who's not.

There was also quite the shocking reveal at the end with some of the characters, although I kind of felt a niggling of this truth beneath the surface. Which I'm still skeptical about how I feel about that, not it's truth but just what it will lead to overall.

Despite being a really good book and incredible story, I still don't feel like I really really enjoyed it like I do all my other reads. It still made for excellent storytelling, and I don't feel like it had to do with the author's writing and this was the first book I read by her. I just don't know. Perhaps it is just one of those books that really wasn't for me.

Overall rating 4/5 stars--giving it the rating I feel it deserves without letting my non-enjoyment hold too much effect over it.

Dark Kiss releases May 22, 2012