Dawn's Awakening (The Breeds, Book 4) Mass Market Paperback – February 5, 2008

This book portrayed and provoked such raw feeling !!! Great story with healing!It awakened new Breed history, loved it!

I laughed and cried and was so truly moved by this story. I don't know if any other book has touched me as much as this one.

Dawn's Awakening picks up with Dawn having been injured in  Aiden's Charity (Wolf Breeds, Book 3) . At her bedside is Seth Lawrence, one of the Breeds' biggest financial supporters and having all the signs of being Dawn's mate. Unfortunately for all of them, Dawn's pack leaders decide to show Seth a video of Dawn being tortured and raped when she was a young teenager in one of the Council's labs; they practically order Seth to go away because they don't think she's in any shape to mate with anyone yet.Flash forward ten years (I really, really hate it when Leigh does this) and Dawn's decided it's time to confront Seth. Little does she know, the years apart have enabled Seth to shake that old mate thing that never went far enough to cement it, and he hasn't exactly been faithful. There's a subplot involving someone out to kill Seth (or is it Dawn, hmm?), but this time around the Breed series, the focus is pretty much squared on Dawn and how much Seth is prepared to push her for her own good.What bugged me in this book was the sudden reversal of personality Dawn goes through in the beginning third of the book. As with all of the Breed books, I get why Seth and Dawn love each other and why her awful past pushes her to be a certain way, but she has a personality-ectomy in the beginning when she's assigned to protect Seth, then again when she's pulled off the team. It's jarring and I wish Leigh had found a less black to white way to advance the storyline. Fortunately, once the book moves along past the few chapters devoted to it, the book is easier to read. Seth is an interesting combination of hopeless romantic and ticked off Alpha where Dawn is concerned, especially since she's a trained butt kicker and manages to find trouble just about everywhere.Did I mention the flamingly hot sex? Yeah, it's there too, and as always, Leigh pours it on, with pretty much any horizontal surface and some vertical ones candidates for clothes-ripping bone-jumping. Seth has a couple of odd, sexy quirks that add both a little bit of humor and a few sweet moments.I liked Dawn's Breed quite a bit once the story got moving and I think it's an important entry in the Breeds series because it actively, graphically, shows the Council's tactics with their captured Breeds and that one child that came out of it could come to terms with it and have a full life in spite of it.Cassie Sinclair, daughter of Elizabeth and Dash from  Elizabeth's Wolf (Wolf Breeds, Book 4)  plays a modestly prominent role here. In this book, she's 18 and still has her prophetic "angel" as well as a maybe-mate she hasn't fully met yet. I hope Leigh is tapping on her keyboard and writing Cassie's story, because I already think it has the potential to be a stunner.

Tortured mercilessly in the Breed labs, Dawn's nightmare should have ended when her Pride escaped the evil Council and left the labs behind. But her torment continued afterwards, at the hands of a Pride brother she should have been able to trust, a Breed who would betray his entire Pride.Years have passed since their escape from the labs and the discovery of the traitorous Breed. Dawn has grown strong, into a Breed Enforcer to be reckoned with, but is not without enduring pain. The torture she experienced has kept her from the Mate she found ten years earlier. But the Mating Heat grows unbearable for Dawn, and she is determined to do whatever it takes to claim Seth Lawrence as her Mate once and for all.Seth has suffered too, although hormonally the Mating Heat is not as difficult for males as for females. But it is more than the Mating Heat that causes Seth's pain - his heart is breaking without the woman he loves, although he would do anything to prevent Dawn's pain - even if that means he must deny himself to prevent her nightmares from returning.Nothing can prevent those nightmares from returning, both in Dawn's dreams and in the waking world. She'll need Seth more than ever to handle the horror she is about to face.Just how many favorite books can I have in one series? If you had asked me before I read Dawn's Awakening which of Lora Leigh's Breeds books was my favorite, I would have debated between Tanner's Scheme and Elizabeth's Wolf, finally settling on a tie. With this new edition in her gripping saga of genetically manipulated people whose DNA is spliced with animal DNA, Dawn's Awakening has unexpectedly earned its place in my top three favorite Breeds stories.When we first met Seth Lawrence in The Man Within, he was kind and noble. In Dawn's Awakening, he is still both, but we finally see the man underneath, as Ms. Leigh delivers a human hero to rival any Breed male we have yet seen in terms of sex appeal and sheer Alpha dominance. Make no mistake, this ex-military man turned head of international conglomerate Lawrence Industries is no pushover, despite his devotion to Dawn and the sacrifices he has made in regards to her well-being. Now that he sees her again, he understands what she needs more than anything is not the distance he has given her for so many years, but to be pushed to her limits, to face her pain and take control of it. And he is the man who will be there with her every step of the way.Dawn's pain is so strong you can feel it emanating from the very pages of this book. How a person, even a Breed, could survive the traumas she has sustained and remain as sane as Dawn has is amazing. But that sanity is near its breaking point as both the Mating Heat and the nightmares from her past bubble to the surface, threatening to consume her once and for all. Digging deep for the strength she has within, Dawn finally finds it within her to reach for the things she wants most, and what she wants most is Seth. Seeing her allow him inside her considerable defenses without losing that inner strength she has built so meticulously over the years is heartwarming and heartrending all at once.You will want to have a big box of tissue handy when you sit down to read Dawn's Awakening. I highly recommend Puff's Plus, as the lotion prevents skin chafing from the numerous times you will be wiping the tears from your eyes and face. But this isn't just a tearjerker of a romance, it is also a riveting suspense-filled story as Seth and Dawn work together to ferret out the person or persons threatening their lives.Of course, through it all, our couple find time for some searing sex scenes guaranteed to leave readers hot and bothered during and after reading Dawn's Awakening! I have said it before and I will say it again - no one knows how to turn me on like Lora Leigh! With her books, of course... LOLSeries Order (NY books only): Megan's Mark (The Breeds, Book 1) (Berkley Sensation) Harmony's Way (The Breeds, Book 2) Tanner's Scheme (The Breeds, Book 3) Dawn's Awakening (The Breeds, Book 4) Connected Books: Hot Spell (The Guardians, Book 1) (The Breed Next Door) (The Countess's Pleasure) (The Blood Kiss)(Falling For Anthony) Beyond the Dark Shifter (Berkley Sensation)

Trauma is hard to grow beyond. It takes special love of many to get us through it. It takes love to go forward beyond it.

I love Lora Leigh’s books and her breed series is my favourite. I am building my library one book at a time and wish I could get them all at once but I won’t stop til I’ve got them all. Every book is my new favourite and I go back and try to read them in order. Carry on Lora.

Love this series, and especially this book. Ms Leigh writes with a depth that makes you, laugh, cry and cheer.

This book will have you in bits. It is relentless in it's description of the Council's cruelty. And tragic at how Dawn was so abused. Her cries to God to save her brought tears to my eyes. So utterly sad. Yet for all that it is a story of love - love of a brother for his sister, parents for their daughter, a man for his lover and last but not least a surviving communities love for one of their damaged women and for their leader Callan. I just love this book and read it at least twice a year - since it was published. I highly recommended this fantastic Breed novel!

As described and early delivery. Excellent!

Absolutely Love Lora Leigh's Breed series I laugh and cry reading every story