Review: Love Hurts?
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 08 4, 2013
To my dismay, I wish I'd of just read the other one star reviews and skipped this book. I love Egyptology and vamps so I thought - like so many others - how could this go wrong.  Well, it went wrong for about 8 - 10 HOURS (the book is long, huge, so if you're trying to muddle through it, prepare for that).....and then - SPOILERS AHEAD -When you think it's going to have a wrap up and BAM!!! it does what so many other Indie author's do - end in the middle.  Two characters are left standing and all of the dozen or so others are just - gone???Plus it was just wrong. It's presented as kind of a philosophical tome about love that cloaks just a ton of gross violence.Maybe it's the one author's vocation coming through but this book presents a seriously skewed view of love and some seriously narcissistic personality disordered characters.  And the ONE person's story I wanted to see play out, Simone, is gobbled up by another.  Don't give me the Mary Sue-ness and angst and Stockholm syndrome of Adrianna without showing me some real growth in the interesting one!And then when I even came looking for the ending I was met with....blank.  Not even a preview of the next novel. Which I would have gladly paid for to see if anyone ever gets happy here.These authors who publish Kindle books because they can, thinking that in 6 months anyone's even going to remember to look for the sequel, or the "next" book....are delusional.It was also bloody, merciless and graphic. All to seemingly make a point about the abused loving the abuser, and vampires thwarting the plans of gods, no actually they gods were kind, it's all the vampires' fault. One of the most disgusting vampire novels I have ever read.  Both races are pathetic, and both are ruled by fear.The horrible symbiotic premise of the vamps in this book is such that humans aren't even worth feeding off of (think vamps that live on rats) and slaves are kept that were meant to be partners and life/light givers to the ruling vamps.  Instead they are kept in cells and bled almost dry, look like death all the time, and never see the light of day; they're referred to as "bloodstock," and dehumaninzed - vampized.  These ruler vamps are afraid of these slaves, so they also include torture and cruelty to them.  That all sounds kind of "meh," until you add in the familial relationships.Two of these vamps are sisters and one is raised as a princess, and is just fine with leaving the other to be imprisoned,  tortured and bled.  The really incestuous parts of the story starts here...and go on and on. There are at least 4 or 5 couples in various states of bonding and rule breaking...and then at the end a magical attempt is made by the bloodstock sister to save her sister's father, who is her lover as well; and if you can stomach all that grossness, they end up together - somewhere in time and/or space. Because he didn't *really* love her mother, but he surely loves her - suspend disbelief moments here.  There is some attempt made to employ a love will save the day theme, but by then if you've kept reading you are probably all too convinced it won't.Contains some graphic sex, a lot of torture and twisted and semi-incestuous love relationships and the Egyptology mythos seems to be thrown in there as justification for all the other plot points.  It's self aggrandizing and has a glossary in case the reader can't figure out or remember the multiple characters, plot devices, mythology created that is not historical, and reasons for all the brutality.