Review: A confusing mixture
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 26, 2011
Guardian is a short story by Elita Daniels and focuses on vampire Anna who was turned 8 years ago.  Vampirism is an infection that was accidentally discovered 30 years ago during a scientific experiment.  It is passed on by other vampires who are `carriers' of the disease through their venom when they bite people.  Once turned a vampire must go into a camp where they are experimented on like animals in a lab. They are mistreated, abused and tortured all in the name of science to see how much of a threat they will be to society.  Once released the vampires must take a cocktail of drugs to control their blood lust.  They are also assigned a human protector, a Guardian, who is a bit like a parole officer.This isn't your usual paranormal book.  There are no other creatures or special powers or battles etc as vampirism was accidentally invented by scientists.  There are no hunting demons or a big case to solve.  It just follows Anna who is a carrier vampire and her struggle with ordinary life and I really liked that, it made a change for me.  I sort of liked Anna she is a complicated character one minute then she is fine the next she acts very strange, she also acts kind of crazy and I just wanted to give her a slap at times.  Anna finds it very difficult to trust and love people, she prefers one night stands to a relationship and this is a big part of the book.  She has two completely different love interests and I was truly shocked to find out what happens in both relationships.  The story is very dark, Anna is abused in the book and she is deceived by those she finally comes to trust.  The characters are quite unpleasant people and I cheered when one finally met his demise.  The vampires are not sparkly they are dangerous sadistic people who like to play with humans and not in a good way.  The book is extremely fast paced.  At times I thought I had missed a page as the story jumps about so much and this did out me off.  I have mixed feelings about this book, on one hand I liked the different take on vampires by Ms Daniels and I do like to read dark stories but then on the other it was just too fast.  The story ends very abruptly another negative for me it was like the last page didn't get printed.  On a plus point I feel that this could be a great book if it was fleshed out, wasn't as fast paced and more time spent on it, I also love the cover.  If you like dark gritty writing maybe you should give this book a go.  I would like to give this book 3 stars.