Review: Wynne Channing + Vampires = TOTAL WIN
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 1, 2014
I Am Forever picks up where What Kills Me leaves off: the Monarchy has just found out that Zee is unkillable.  Oh she can be killed, but the entire vampire race will die with her.  Now the Monarchy must figure out what to do with her: imprison her or bring her into their folds.  The answer is obvious and can accomplish two goals.Zee is immediately renamed and presented to the entire vampire race with a "Do Not Kill" creed placed on her.  The Monarchy lavishes her with jeweled outfits that Channing brings to life with sparkling words; I could practically see The Divine step out of the pages into my living room.  Wynne Channing paints these details so incredibly well.  Some authors struggle with world-building, but not her.  Every speck of dust, every last encrusted jewel or dried blood from a tear that ran down a vampire's cheek is in these pages, and unlike other story-tellers, it doesn't feel like info-dumping in the least.  The details are a part of the story and I love that about Channing's writing.I am convinced that Wynne Channing writes the best vampire stories and I Am Forever is no exception.  We finally get close to the Empress in I Am Forever and Zee learns more about what it means to drown in a well of the vampire Gods' blood.  She has powers and is only now realizing them.  She was super-snarky and fun in What Kills Me, and remains so in I Am Forever, but she becomes so much stronger in I Am Forever that she is finally worthy of Lucas.  Of anyone!  Through Zee, we learn the history of the vampire race, their weaknesses, their fears and their strengths, and more about the war between the rebels and the Monarchy.  It's politics at its best.Lucas has a little less facetime in I Am Forever, although he is forever on Zee's mind.  He is as brooding and sexy as ever and if you haven't read this series yet, you need to start, if for nothing else than this sexy swordsmith vampire with a conscious.  He's adorbs.  Zee's adorbs.  Together, they're adorbs!  I was really in love with how obvious he was about his feelings, and she was just blind to it.  So. Cute.We are also intro'd to new characters: Brogan the transexual female maid, San the war page-turned-chaperone, the Transporter.  I loved them all because they bring so much more to the story, and really round out everything, and I felt horrible when things happened to some of them.PS: Channing's characters are all still really funny even in the most serious of situations!  I LOL'd so many times during I Am Forever that I am sure my fiance wondered what was wrong with me!  For example:"Did you see anyone's dirty secrets?" San blurted."What? No," I said."Because, my lady, I can explain.  Fantasies are very healthy - "I put my hand up. "Oh my God, San. You need to stop right now.""Uther said it's just a routine checkup.  But they're obviously not going to check my heartbeat or my cholesterol.  What else is there to do?""I don't know.  How routine is an examination of a god?"  He said the last word so disparagingly."I don't appreciate your sarcasm," I said."Oh, because I was going to update my Facebook status as soon as I got home: Zee's a vampire.  Come see her teeth."I'm really afraid to give away too many details of the plot, because I don't want to spoil the story, but suffice it to say, Zee is special, the Monarchy knows she is special and has a lot of power and guess what people normally want to do with someone who has that?  Zee has weaknesses and some are not above exploiting those.  And unfortunately she might be a little naive, too.Overall, this is still one of my favorite vampire series (I'm seriously starting to think it might be my favorite!), because it totally tickles every paranormal bookworm bone in my body and I loved it.  It's technically a YA, but adults will get full enjoyment out of it too.  It's full of wisdom, jokes, romance and tons tons TONS of bloody action scenes that had me fist-pumping in the air!Move over, everybody, Wynne Channing has a new fangirl - again.  It's nearly impossible to follow-up "awesome" with "amazing", but she does it with a superb sequel.