Review: Not your average vamp story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 23, 2012
Reunion:Heaton is one of my must read authors. I really enjoy her work, and I love this series, Vampires Realm, of books. However, this was not my favorite. It's worth the read, it just wouldn't be my first pick. I would still recommend the book though to anyone looking for a good vamp read that doesn't follow the same tired theme of the majority of vampire books these days.Marise is a vampire, a Law Keeper for her bloodline, the Venia bloodline. She also hasn't been home in 50 years due to her love at the time having cheated on her with his maker, but now she's been called home to investigate the attack on her Lord of the bloodline. Her former lover, Jascha, is there and is the head guard for the Lord. When her Lord was attacked, two guards were killed and one was gravely wounded. That guard, of course, was Jascha. As a Law Keeper, Marise is not supposed to show emotion, but that becomes increasingly harder as she sees Jascha's injuries and tends to him and spends time with him during her investigation.The writing is well done. The character growth is good. However, I wasn't as found of this female character as I have been with other female characters of Heaton's. I like that she's a strong, independent female that can take care of herself rather than the overdone damsel in distress. But, she just had personality flaws that annoyed me like she's supposed to have had a relationship with this man, but lied to him the entire time and upon the falling out incident still didn't come clean. I just had a hard time swallowing that. Her lack of interest in learning to speak even basic Russian sort of bugged me too. It seemed to make her sound bubbly, which she is not presented to be. I also found a bit of confusion in the genetically altered human vampire slayer villain character. There seemed to be something missing with this part of the story line.However, overall, I did enjoy the book, and was left wanting to read more of this series. Like I said, if you're looking for a fairly short, but not too short vampire romance with a twist, then give this one a try. It's not your typical vampire romance story where the vamps are lonely heroes who are just misunderstood by the world or that overplayed damsel in distress saved by the oh so mysterious man. It's darker with the vamps not being all wonderful heroes and heroines but not being all bad either. They're more relatable than many vamps of other books I think. It's a fast, fun read that kept me interested to the end.