Burning the Darkness: MM Romance Review

Burning the Darkness by Wren Martin | Amazon | Goodreads | Bookbub | My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blurb:

A Lightborn manifests once a century. Oren’s light magic is powerful enough to wipe out the court and devastate vampire society, but money and connections can thwart any threat. Killed before they even know they have been betrayed, the Lightborn has become little more than a monster from Julian’s bedtime stories.

The surprise attack by the vampire’s feral army should have killed Oren. Instead, he wakes up, bloodied and weak in the lair of his enemy.

It is surely no act of benevolence. Julian is the son of the Master of the Court. A night creature, whose sharp teeth at Oren’s throat leave him changed – transformed into the very monster he was born to destroy.

They are bound together, but Oren’s magic is only growing stronger. He resists control, even as he slips further into hunger, and Julian’s father is close to figuring out the truth. Time is running out, and Oren’s existence threatens to tip the delicate balance of power at court into a battle that will devour them both.

Burning the Darkness is a gay, vampire romance with spice, that explores themes of discovering you’re queer, and what it means to be a monster.
193 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication October 1, 2024

Unique Vampire Political Intrigue

Burning the Darkness by Wren Martin is a vampire tale that’s both vaguely familiar and refreshingly unique. The vampire trope of an unwillingly turned character bonded with their sire, who wants them from the start, is common enough in a vampire tale. But this story feels unique and fresh because of the lore surrounding the Lightborn and how they can be a lone weapon to combat the vampire menace that plagues the world.

Worldbuilding

There’s a lot of world-building in this story that, at times, felt rushed. The political intrigue is told through expository paragraphs instead of slowly revealing itself. Some people prefer this sort of world-building, but to me, it feels more inorganic. The world’s political landscape is complex, though, so while some of it felt like info dumping, I think it needs a bit more so the nuances are clear. This could be done with more detail and content that explains it through actions.

Lightborn: Literally Burning the Darkness

The Lightborn is a human born once per generation who possesses light magic and can turn vampires into ash. It turns out that the humans who are supposed to be protecting the Lightborn instead sell them out and Oren, this generation’s Lightborn and one of the MCs, is ambushed and would be killed if not for Julian. Julien is a vampire, the son of the vampire leader, who meets Oren before the night of the ambush. He turns Oren into a vampire in a bit of an experiment. The hypothesis: Will a Lightborn, turned into a vampire, the very being he is supposed to fight, retain his powers? And if he does keep his light magic, can the vampire(s) in power use this newly turned Lightborn Vampire hybrid as a weapon to retain and grapple for more power?

Intrigue in Burning the Darkness

Enter the political intrigue, indeed, because the leader of the Vamps gives secretive permission to do conduct this experiment, intending to control his fellow vamps even further. His plan might or might not backfire spectacularly. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing.

Volunteer Network

There is a volunteer network of humans who will willingly give up their blood for hungry vamps, and I think it is an interesting choice by the author to write this group as ostracized from high vampire society because mainstream vamps want to hunt. I like this choice, to be honest. So many times when vampires reveal themselves to the world and become mainstreamed into society, what that means for the vampires is that they have to give up their very nature, their vampire-ness, to fit in. I think it’s very likely that elder vampires would strongly resist that. Therefore, I like this element of the story.

Contemporary? Surpise!

Many vampire stories are set in Victorian (or Victorian-like) times. I assumed Burn the Darkness was also set in a historical world. The way clothing is described, some of their dialogue, the formality of the world led me to this assumption.

Cue my surprise when cell phones and cars come up in the story. Contemporary surprise! Once I knew that Burn the Darkness is set in a contemporary vampire world, reworking the background to a more contemporary world in my imagination settled things in place. I think that this is giving… a lack of details about the time frame the story is set in. These can be small details, but they should be be sprinkled throughout the story to let the reader naturally make that assumption. Other parts of the story had plenty of very thorough world-building but I think more details about modern elements like phones, clothing styles, music playing etc. would have made this detail less ambiguous.

Action

I enjoy the way the author writes action. With clear, gripping descriptions, the actors’ movements are evocative and engaging. The fight scenes and action sections of the story are highlights of this story. A+ writing there!

From Enemies to Lovers

Throughout Burning the Darkness, Oren strongly resists the bond he and Julian share. Oren doesn’t want to feed from humans. He resents being turned into a vampire. In fact, Oren thinks being a vampire is pretty trash. These beliefs are deep. Part of me questions how quickly Oren comes around. There is one line, something like, so what if it’s fake it feels real. This brings the question of whether their feelings are real or fake. Are these burgeoning feelings simply part of the bond? Do they both resign themselves to this fate and just run with it? A bit more passion would have made their progression to lovers a bit more realistic.

Overall Rating

I give this book a 4/5. I enjoyed Burning with Darkness and will continue the series if it becomes one.\

MM Romance Book Reviews

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

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