A Shade Of Vampire by Bella Forrest
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Goodreads:
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?
***
Date Published: December 14, 2012
Format: Kindle Edition, 152 pages
Date Read: April 27, 2013
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Contrary to my pathetic excuse that I've had enough of vampire books already, I still read A Shade of Vampire with hopes that it will be at least good and different. And to my surprise, I liked A Shade of Vampire more than I thought I would.
Bella Forrest's interpretation of the vampire race is fresh and quite different from the others I've read or seen. And her words provided a vivid picture of what her vampire world would look like. The Shade, for instance, is one of the unique elements of the story that makes A Shade of Vampire stand out a little from the rest. Instead of living and blending in with humans, vampires here (or at least vampires under the Novaks) are closed off and separated from the real world, though they may occasionally come out of their sanctuary. Plus, I have not noticed that they have the ability to compel humans to do their bidding, which is a common thing for vampire stories nowadays. But the "drink my blood so your wounds would heal" is there, which kind of reminds me of The Vampire Diaries.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Goodreads Summary:
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.
***
Date Read: April 24, 2012
I really like the book. I love the cover and title. I like the characters. I like the way it was written. I like the story. It's the first english novel I've actually read that's creepy. And now, I honestly don't know what else to say.
The story was told in Cas' point of view, the ghost-slaying teenager who moves around a lot with his witch mother. Cas is brave and confident, but not cocky. At a young age, he knows what he wants/needs to do. And I admire him for that. He's the type of character you'll like but not really swoon over.
Anna, the murdered teenage girl who's known as a dangerous killer at Thunder Bay. I already had the hunch that she's not really who she seems to be. And I really like her so much. I found her creepy at times, but other than that, I imagine her as this pretty girl in a white dress.
Thomas is the usual sidekick/bestfriend character. He's geeky and a little annoying at times, but he's incredibly gifted. He kind of reminds me of Sam from I Am Number Four.
Carmel is the Queen Bee of the school. I actually didn't like her at first, but as I read on, I've learned to like her. She's not your typical rich and popular girl. She's more than that. And that's what made me like her.
I guess that's all. :)))
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teepee J
