Review: Creative Take on the Classic Vampire Tale
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 8, 2014
I would like to thank The Cover Contessa and E.B. Hood for granting me the opportunity to read e-book in exchange for an honest review. Though I received this e-book for free that in no way influenced my review. I would actually rate this book 3.5 stars, but the creativity and emotional challenges bump it up to 4 stars (though the typos almost kept it at 3 stars - typos take many readers out of the carefully crafted world the writer has worked so hard to give the readers, and that is never a good thing).<blockquote>Melanie Dare is a teenage girl. Drugs and abuse by her parents change all that. She is raped and murdered and finds herself awake in a new decade. Melanie becomes Melabeth the vampire, and she is thrust into events outside of her control. Meeting a small circle of friends - not all who can be trusted - she finds herself obsessed with revenge against her killers… but along the way finds love. Her battle for revenge has terrible, unintended consequences, and she will question, who, and what she is. Can her love survive her need for revenge? This is the first part of a three part series about forgiveness.</blockquote>An action-packed entry into what looks to be a sizzling series, <em>Melabeth The Vampire</em> is a gripping tale of greed, depression, depravity, loss, love, and learning the art of forgiveness. Fifteen-year-old Melanie Elizabeth Dare has led a strange life. Born into a small hippy family, Melanie never had what anyone would call a traditional upbringing. She never attended school due to her parents nomadic ways, picking up and moving to follow a band, or because the stars were aligned just right, etc. Then came the drugs, and Melanie lost her mother to an overdose. Instead if that acting as a wake up call for her father he just sank deeper and deeper into the life of an addict. But he knew if Melanie were seen outside during the day it would cause trouble for him, trouble he didn't need as a drug dealer. Too bad he made the rookie mistake of using his own product. A mistake Melanie paid for with her life.Next thing she knows is waking up in a grave, dead, but not dead. As she escapes the grave she slowly begins to remember what had happened. Only the end result wasn't quite what anyone expected. Instead of rising in five to seven days, she rose 15 years later. So she left the living world in 1975, only to awaken to a radically changed world of 1990. All she desires is to take revenge on those who hurt and killed her.As she begins her journey she meets Carrie, a ghost. Carrie had been raped and killed as well, but was thrilled to finally have so done who could see and hear her. The two travel farther, then end up catching a bus. On the bus Melabeth, the name Melanie gave herself for her life as a vampire, meets David. Though she is attracted to him what she experienced was only a month ago in her mind, not fifteen years ago. David also has secrets, most of which he doesn't even know yet.Carrie stays with David, who has been sent to live with his Mom out of the blue. But Melabeth can't stay there, and when she learns there are other vampires in town she opts to meet them to learn how to be a vampire. Things are strained with the White family at first, but Melabeth soon becomes a member of the family. As she develops her unusual powers, she also develops individual relationships with each member of the White family, as well as continuing her relationship with David, Carrie, and eventually becoming close friends with David's younger sister Lizzie.Michael White, David, And Lizzie all help Melabeth plan her revenge upon the men who murdered her. They learn that one of the leaders, a powerful sorcerer, masquerades as a high school teacher. The problem is that Lizzie and her family believe in an organization known only as The Order. The Order consists almost entirely of other powerful supernaturals who police their community. But in reality they use their power to fix things to their liking. So when Lizzie tells her parents that they have evidence of what Devon did to Melabeth, her father calls Devon directly, unwittingly setting off a chain reaction that will destroy lives at an atrocious rate.Throughout this book the action, emotion, and character development are well balanced. As the arc of the story flows, so to does Melabeth's emotional maturity - to a point.  By the end of book one Melabeth is teetering on the edge of a blade, one small nudge and she could fall into endless darkness, or she could redeem herself and her love. But will she survive her thirst for vengeance long enough to have the chance? Maybe we'll learn which way she falls in the second book in this series.