Review: Putting the "Dark" Back Into Dark Fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2014
I've wanted to read this since I first encountered the original version (which is far different than the published work) online several years ago. Online fiction tends to have a bad reputation, certainly not helped by the Twilight-rip-off nonsense that is Fifty Shades of Grey. There are however, after one weeds through the dreck, many incredibly talented authors who really should be writing professionally. Yes, they are that good. And most of the good ones have little to no interest in writing professionally--they write for the sheer love of writing.Jane Bled is one of many who fall into the "they're that good" category, which explains why this book won the award for best e-book in 2009 at the Hollywood Book Festival. She has an engaging, yet detailed style with characters who are more than the sum of their parts. She crafts horror and atmosphere with an almost poetical skill. Yes, this is a vampire novel. Yes, there's M/M relationships. Yes, there's angst. Yes, there's blood, guts and gore. Considering how utterly defanged vampires have become over the past few years, one might be tempted to skip this one.Don't.These are the vampires we affecianados have sorely missed. They're apex predators and act like it. Humans are food and they treat them as such. In fact, their callousness towards human life might shock those who like their vampires all nice and sparkly. There's the old struggle to maintain a semblance of humanity. Raiden and Gabriel are that immovable force and irresistable object and they leave carnage in their wake. An ambitious Japanese rock star and a hot-commodity American actor. Neither shall the twain ever meet, save through blind chance and a moment of unthinking hunger. Granted, this is part of a series so if cliffhangers are not your cuppa, you might want to wait for the third book, which will be released some time this year.