Elitist Book Reviews

I found A SHADE OF VAMPIRE thanks to Amazon recommendations, it had over 600 five-star ratings, and it was a mere $.99 for Kindle. I was kinda excited to find something new.

It was a trap.

Our main POV first-person narrators are Sofia and Derek. Sofia is our red-haired, green-eyed young woman vacationing with a friend's family when she's abducted on the night of her 17th birthday. Derek is the 500 year old vampire prince just woken from a four century slumber and given his own harem of beautiful human women, of whom Sofia is included.

If I could go deeper into plot and character, I would. If I could. A SHADE OF VAMPIRE is exactly what it sounds like: an unimaginative wish fulfillment fantasy with amateur prose and trite dialogue. The story is predictable simply because there isn't anything more to it than what I mentioned above.

So Derek and Sofia are thrown together and for some unknown reason they intrigue each other. No reason, really. Even though we do get a lot of sappy contrived interactions between them. Sofia doesn't seem afraid for her life, even if she does make a token escape attempt. She adjusts to her new role as slave pretty easily.

Derek doesn't seem like a vampire other than he craves blood and is strong, which makes the vampire culture really bland. Why is Derek a vampire prince? Because of some vaguely explained thing he did five hundred years ago. So who's been in charge for the 400 years he's been asleep? Why does Derek not seem to have an occupation although they talk about getting rid of those pesky hunters? And why are vampires holding so much stock in a prophecy? (Why do fantasy writers still use such contrived methods to create tension?) I don't know.

They spend the book at this vampire sanctuary Derek's family built while he was sleeping. It's some island (no idea where) with beautiful forests, and because of a witch it exists in perpetual night. How do the trees stay living after 400 years of perpetual night? Why would vampires feel the need to build penthouse apartments in redwood and sequoia trees? Why mention that there are no ladders/stairs to the penthouses but Sofia can get to the ground somehow? Why end it with a confusing cliffhanger? I don't know.

Why are there no answers to these questions? Because I don't think the author knows the answers to them, either. The prose is amateurish, the dialogue is expositional yet tells me nothing, the descriptions are ham-handed and lack originality. If anything, A SHADE OF VAMPIRE is a warning lesson to all you wannabe authors out there: please, no more novels like this to waste my time.

Recommended Age: Um, I suppose it's aimed at a teenage audience who are fans of TWILIGHT, but you don't want your kids rotting their brains by reading this drek
Language: None
Violence: So lame it's a comedy
Sex: Referenced

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A SHADE OF VAMPIRE