This book does not disappoint—it is a page turner from page 1. Those of you that like reading stories on Vampires this series is for you. The first book introduces us to Dawn Madison, who has returned to Los Angeles, CA to help find her missing father—Frank Madison—nobody knows what happened to Frank and have not been able to locate him. This first book also introduces us to the Underground—the world of vampires—what goes on in their world below LA. As Dawn, Breisi, and Kiko (a psychic) start looking for Frank, they come across the guardians—a hybrid breed of vampires—their only task is to protect the underground from being discovered—a confrontation between them and the Paranormal Investigation team from Limpet and Associates leaves Dawn and her colleagues—Breisi and Kiko injured and no closer to finding Frank than they were when Dawn first returned to LA. This is a must read for those of us that are drawn to the world of Vampires—this gives you a peek into the underground world of the vampire world. I am looking forward to reading the remaining five books in this series to see how everything turns out—see if Dawn will be able to find her missing father, Frank before it is too late. This first book keeps the reader intrigued and wondering what is going to happen next. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. ( )

I think this is a great book to kick off a new series... ( )

Read the entire view here: http://mybookishways.blogspot.com/2011/01/review-night-rising-vampire-babylon-1....

Dawn Madison is a stuntwoman laying low after a humiliating “incident” on the job. When she is contacted with the news that her father, Frank, has gone missing while investigating the sighting of a child actor that was supposed to be dead, she is drawn into a supernatural world she never knew existed.

Night Rising is just a fun, sexy ride of a novel. Dawn is tough and resilient, yes, but she’s also broken, and feels like she is constantly in the shadow of her sex symbol mother, who died when she was young. She teams up with Breisi, a beautiful techno geek(with a penchant for rather tacky teddy bear t-shirts) and Kiko, a short, sweet, and psychic actor, to find her father and solve the mystery of the supposedly dead child star.

Then there’s The Voice, Breisi and Kiko’s Charlie’s Angelesque boss, supposedly a talented hypnotist and a shut-in. Dawn never sees him, but she most certainly feels him, which serves as a nearly constant distraction for Dawn. How Ms. Green managed to make a disembodied voice sexy, I don’t know, but she did!

I liked Dawn. A lot. She grew on me more and more as the novel progressed. She uses sex as a balm, and as a way to escape from herself. She’s terrified of getting close to others and suffers from a near constant jealousy of the legendary beauty that her mother was in life. These weaknesses were what I liked most about her, because we all have insecurities, some more than others, and this vulnerability made me identify with her all the more.

Night Rising alternates between looking over Dawn’s shoulder in third person POV and taking us Underground, where a race of vampires hold the key to this mystery, and an aging Master and his second in command are trying to hold together the secret of their existence. Ms. Green did a great job at conveying the sensuality of the vamp race without resulting to gratuitous scenes, and I really enjoyed her rather fun and unique hierarchy within the vamp Underground, not to mention the different kinds of vamps that make up the vampire race, some of which are super nasty; the barbed tails and sharp silver teeth kind of nasty! The author’s writing style is smooth, and easy to keep up with, and she doesn’t clutter things up with info overload, rather weaving in details throughout the novel, keeping you reading and wanting to learn more about her quirky (and lovable) cast of characters.

A more perfect, and rich, backdrop could not have been found for this book, and Ms. Green mines it for all it’s worth! Hollywood glamour and the trappings of celebrity highlight the dark secrets that lurk just beneath the surface. Just when I’d had enough of vampires and didn’t think there was anything original left, I discovered Night Rising, and I’m so glad I did! I’m actually happy that I didn’t read this when it first came out, in 2007, because now there are five more books in the series, and I don’t have to wait to read them! I’m looking forward to learning more about Dawn’s past, not to mention getting more of Kiko, Breisi, and of course, The Voice! ( )

It took me forever to get through this book. I kept leaving it whenever anything else/better came along, coming back to it only when I had a draught in my available reading options. It wasn't so bad that I put it down forever, but bad enough that I've owned it since April and I've only just today finished it (November). I like vampire fiction, and I did like the interesting twist on the vampire scenario presented in this book. The detective agency parts were interesting, too, and the author does just enough to leave you hanging that it makes you want to know what's going to happen next and if your predictions will come true. The main problem I had with the book was its heroine, Dawn. She's so obsessed with her own sexual longings that she doesn't have a lot else going for her character, and in my opinion the book took too much time to explore these longings and not enough time focusing on the mystery portions of the plot. I already own the 2nd book in this series, so I'm going to read it but only because I still don't have anything else to read right now. I'm not sure how many books there are in total, but I'm hoping it isn't more than two because I only barely care enough that I want to know how the whole plot line will be resolved, but not so much that I want to have to track down and read several more books. ( )

At times, I felt I could tell that this author perhaps is fairly new to the writing genre, but that was easily overlooked. The premise of this story is a good one, if not perhaps a little overused. I'm talking about someone happening to fall into the world of vampires (or other things that go bump in the night), not really believing it at first but eventually coming to terms with the fact that they are now a vampire hunter.

Unlike a lot of urban fantasy writers, Chris Marie Green keeps a lot of the original mythology of vampires in this book, which was appreciated, and a fresh a fresh approach. Funny how going back to those original ideas about vampires can be considered fresh, but considering how many writers have gotten away from this, I like it.

Things I didn't like: The Voice. I don't know if the author is trying to do a Charlie's Angels type of thing with it, but I don't think it really worked. I also didn't like the lack of details about the forces that are being fought, even when directly asked or from the perspective of the underground characters. Also near the top of the list of dislikes is the fact that Frank is never found in this book, which is the main reason why Dawn is drawn into this world to begin with. How many books of the series are we going to have to go through to get this point resolved? Even if it's taken care of in the next book, that's too long. This is a book, not a season-long TV series. And the foreshadowing at the end of the book at what happened to Dawn's mother is again a bit too much like the last scene of a cliffhanger. I liked the book as it was, to the point I would probably read the next one anyway, I don't need these dramatic cliff hangers which really say to me that the author couldn't reach a conclusion to his book under his deadline. That just detracts from the book.

Will I continue reading the series? Probably. At least one more book. I like the team approach to going after the bad vampires that a lot of other authors seem to lack. However, if I continue to get strung along like a never-ending TV series, I likely won't see it through to the end. ( )