Review: Release Day Review!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 3, 2014
My Rating: 4.5 of 5 StarsThe Edge Of Hope kept me on the edge all the while I was reading it. It is not the usual paranormal vampire story where blood and gore is coupled with a to-die-for-vampire's erotic bite which sets hearts pumping frantically and readers to fangirl on actors who get to play them for reel. To make it blunt: this was a horrifying look into that vampire world Brahm Stoker ruined us for. That world of pain and suffering with vampires laughing in condescencion over puny humans.Alexa finds herself purposely trapped within the paranormal world and she is not loving it. She is not liking it, either. In this intensely dangerous world, she can be destroyed like a bug or put in pain so intense she blacks out. It plays havoc with her flimsy grip on hope, and yet, there are still bright bits of happiness that she manages to find. Her complexity because of that very duality is what makes her fascinating to the vampires she previously thought existed only in her imagination.This is a woman who has been through a lot of emotional pain and suffering both from her actions and those she considered her closest friends. A crisis brought out the fighter in her and allowed her to survive as best she could psychologically. Unfortunately, others see her as a desperate woman on the brink of self-destruction and really, that is what the read lead me to conclude. Then, Alexa does the unexpected and I'm left wondering just how strong this woman is to have been able to survive her psychic pains and still come out laughing, enjoying life to the fullest, and actually be self-sufficient. She left me wondering most of the time for she revealed little much despite her inner ramblings. Alexa could also be so stupid but this is what endeared her to me for this made her real!It all starts when she meets Anthony, a journalist who interviews her about her current work in progress about vampires. Her theories on the origins of these creatures were different from all the rest and drew his attention. But, she never expected this attention would lead to a harsher reality and another, maybe even more painful, betrayal.In the midst of her new crisis, Louis appears. A vampire supposedly just like the rest, his secrets run deep and an inexplicable attraction runs even deeper. A highly intuitive Alexa realizes what those secrets are and Louis sees in her a conundrum of a brilliant mind hidden in a survivor's instinct that could set others to shame, both trapped in a frail human body with no hope of defense from attacks of his kind. His relationship with her is supposedly based on friendship alone and yet Alexa cannot really settle for it. Neither can he.Apparently, not all is well in the secret vampire kingdom. This makes the Council decide to send Hesrah, a trueborn, through a portal to Earth. She must find the answers about disappearing trueborns who had lived amongst the humans for centuries. Anthony and Louis are instructed to assist her and Alexa is made to serve her as well. It's a situation she cannot love nor escape, but in true Alexa style, she makes the best of it and gains Hesrah's grudging admiration.Her relationship with Louis and Hesrah is a complicated thing. On one hand, they are friends and can laugh and enjoy life together as Hesrah gets to learn about Earth and humans. On the other, both vampires can have her for a snack and there is nothing she can do to stop them. It doesn't help that her snarky comebacks get her into trouble more often than not.As the mystery of the disappearing trueborn vampires deepens, Alexa finds herself in an even more precarious situation that could prove fatal not only to her, but to Louis and Hesrah. The Edge of Hope ends with a cliffhanger, without even a clue about what could happen next, only a name that means almost nothing at this point - Philippe. Who (or what?) is he? Why did Louis choose to act that way? What information is Hesrah hiding? Until Alina Popescu's second installment, there are only questions.