Review: not deep enough  for me
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 15, 2013
Date with a Vampire. Raine English.Vampires and Romance, two of my triggers so I was looking forward to reading this novel. Its a stand alone too - though I love books that run in series, I'm getting really tired of reading duos or trilogies that end on cliffhangers, and take six months or more before next part is out.Anyway, began this and....ran into problems. Melody as a lottery winner being overwhelmed by all the publicity and fortune hunters I could understand. Going on TV to get out of it - I sort of saw the logic, but really didn't agree with it. Guy too - he's hundreds of years old, and time means nothing to vampires so why on earth would his father give him just sixty days to find a wife...ah well, maybe if I put my reservations aside I can get into the book.Sadly that didn't prove so. The reality show - I was expecting something along the lines of Jill Myles Wicked Games, a book I loved. That one really developed the reality show format and made it work, here the actual reality show part seemed to get glossed over almost, and we saw little of the "dates" or the other contestants. I liked Guy but he seemed a doormat to his father, and after all that while surely his father would see that Guy was the better heir, rather than his cruel brother. I felt the magic part was a bit too slick and convenient to get the players in the position they needed to be, a sort of short cut rather than an essential part of the plot. Still, as ever this is just my view and lots of people want a simplified, easy to follow plot.This really just felt to me that it was a very simple romance, with a bit of magic and paranormal thrown in - it just didn't work for me. I ended up skimming the book to finish as I just wasn't invested enough in the characters, it just seemed a bit too unreal, and almost juvenile in parts considering Guy and his brother were hundreds of years old. Theo's harem too - I didn't see the point of including them, they didn't seem to add to the story, and just took away time that could have been used for more of the reality show filming. Priced at 2.54 for 224 pages its a reasonable cost.Stars: two and a half, overall not one for me but may be just what you want if you like lighter romances.ARC provided via Netgalley.