Review: Some nice elements, but overall problematic
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2014
I won a copy of this book in Elle Casey's January Anniversary Indie Book Giveaway. First things first: the prologue. I get what the author was trying to do here, of course: give us a taste of what's to come later, so that we know what climax we are building towards. But in the case of this book, the prologue gave away far too much. Therefore the book did not have enough tension or surprises as it went on. Adding insult to injury, the prologue is repeated as Chapter 35 *word for word* as far as I could tell!!! With only one short final chapter after that - which resolves nothing, really, except perhaps readers' interest in Book 2. This just feels like lazy writing (which is a complaint I had about a lot of this book, actually, especially where the romance is concerned). This had a pretty fresh take on vampires, which I appreciated, but that being said I didn't think that the take was developed enough *as vampirism*. That is, the vampire coven seems simply like a political faction against the Robarts' reign over the Kingdom of Altera, as opposed to a dangerous supernatural enemy. Their threat never quite feels visceral, only political, which is an odd thing when you're talking about blood-drinking immortals. I generally liked the main character, Angeline. She is compelling, smart beyond her 18 years, and massively pissed off when she finds out that she's been lied to so deeply her whole life - truly an heiress of lies! However, I take issue with the following: rather than calling out the raging sexism of her world, she - and thus the book itself - simply repeat various iterations of "She cursed the day she wasn't born male", thus upholding male superiority without real question. One would think that as part of Angeline's 're-education' (also via males) in this story, she would call out how messed up that is rather than going along with everything. She remains a pawn being manipulated by men, and the book doesn't give any indication that it's aware of social commentary. The book plays it straight, and the excerpt from Book 2 didn't give me a sense that the rest of Angeline's tale will be all that different.