Wednesday, February 7, 2018

A Shade of Vampire

Alright, so a week or so ago a friend tagged me in an ad on Facebook about a book that rivals Twilight, and if you've been around this blog long enough you know I had a slight (alright, full blown) Twilight obsession, I was a Twi-hard. I still am. I was Team Edward (because Jacob is a pedophile who licks his own butt) and I had a plethora of Edward Cullen and Robert Pattinson things. Sadly, I had to downsize because everyone was creeped out from my six foot cardboard cut out but don't you worry, no landfill will take my Edward! He's in my closet. Sometimes he keeps me company.

Don't even try to judge me. I'm almost 36, I can do what I want.

So as soon as Tiffany told me about this, I was all in. Book two is on the way because I can't even handle this. I'm going to fly through these!!

A Shade of Vampire - Bella Forrest

On the evening of Sofia Claremont's seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake.

A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood.

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine.
An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains.

Sofia's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince.

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? ...or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks?


I can see right away why people are giving this two, sometimes three stars, it's slow. It doesn't get really great until maybe 3/4 of the way through and it feels like a mad rush to the end and then you're like, REALLY?! You leave me like that?? Well hot damn, let me order book two right now so that I can spend my week doing this instead of you know... cleaning my house, watching my children, adulting type things. I see that books 1-7 are Sofia and Derek's story but that there are an obscene number of books in this series, like 55? More? I have no idea but right now I'm going into it invested in Sofia and Derek.

I'd like to think if I was captured by a coven of vampires I would be like Sofia, cool under pressure. Able to woo the Prince himself and save my damn ass. You know what you do? You comfort the girl next to you before you're all slaughtered and that catches the eye of the Prince, and then you say something ballsy about not being a victim, and that saves you.

Unrealistic? You bet your damn ass. Worth a try? You bet your damn ass.

Assuming it works you become the head of the Prince's harem, his head whore except you aren't having sex, and you kind of start to fall in love (you think) and it feels wrong because he's a vampire and you're not. You realize he is protecting you, he knows you're special but doesn't know why, and everyone is uneasy around you. Except his douchebag of a brother who is just the worst. I can't give more away on that because it ruins a major turning point in the book.

But I know it's slow, you guys. I feel like this book was giving us a lot of base information, setting everything in motion for the rest of the series, so I'm willing to reserve judgement on the series as a whole. Let me get through book two and then I'll see if I feel differently, but right now I'm giving this a solid 3 stars. Not a lot in the way of romance, it's very Beauty and the Beast in a way, but I was trying to absorb information knowing I would need it as we continued the series, and it's almost sweet, the relationship of Sofia and Derek. I'm kind of loving it and I don't hate her as much as I did Bella in Twilight, so there's that.

   

2 comments:

Shooting Stars Mag said...

I know how unapologetic you are about your love for Twilight. LOL I definitely had my years where I loved it. Sometimes the first book in a series can be a bit slow, but three stars isn't bad! I hope you enjoy the rest more. :)

-Lauren
www.shootingstarsmag.net

Suzanne @ The Bookish Libra said...

"I don't hate her as much as I did Bella in Twilight, so there's that." I think this line from your post might have just sold me on this book, as Bella was the main reason I wasn't the biggest fan of the Twilight series, lol.