Rising Darkness is not Paranormal Romance. Once you set your mind like that, like Karen Marie Moning's Fever series and Neil Gaiman's UF books, this book started slow but chock-full of character-building and world-building around it and romances is hardly in the agenda. The story possibly consisted of 1/3 of what it should be. Its a multiple POV story that centered around on a woman having some problems with her mental issues only to realize that she's something even stranger and older than time itself. Its also the story of a troubled boy who became a dangerous man who spend several lifetimes seeking for the other half of his life and his mentor, an old woman with her own brand of secrets and also an enemy of time themselves. 
 The book did start slow and it took only several days from the start to the end. But in between them, was a wealth of interesting things like nightmares, dreams, the past and somewhere in between. Characters simmering and age old mysteries unveiled (which normally would take several books just to happen) and all leads to a long forgotten memory between a star-crossed lovers and the consequence in the present. 
 I do think this book as beautiful. The reviews were uneven but as a series, this is a good start. Its not anywhere similar to the Elder Races so I do get the disappointment with the lack of romance interaction early on in the book (there's a definite contrast between reading this book and the excerpt from the Elder Races' continuation at the book) but the story is decently paced enough with its own multiple mysteries that keep me on reading.