A request came from this author to review her book, "A Shade of Vampire." Here is my take on this book."A Shade of Vampire" by Bella Forrest is about a 17-year old girl, Sofia Claremont, who is kidnapped and brought to an island where the sun is forbidden to shine, to serve as a slave to the prince of The Shade, the most powerful vampire coven in the world.
By reading the synopsis, this really has some great potential. However, there were many parts in this book that worked too fast and had now build-up to hook me into the story. I had trouble at the very beginning and had to restart the book twice because I became confused with what was happening. The chapters are very short. The whole book is in first person but each chapter is from another person’s point of view. Personally, I don’t care for this kind of writing. It’s tricky to write in this style and not lose your reader. As I became involved in one chapter, it would end and move on to the other person’s point of view and confuse the hell out of me.
The best way to describe my experience was that I was reading the high points of an outline. There was not enough material to it to fill in the gaps. With that being said, I do believe this could be a good story if you can handle the first person point of view from several characters. But it really didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I appreciated Ms. Forrest’s incredible imagination at creating the world that these vampires lived in, albeit very unrealistic and far-fetched.
I spoke with another reader who seems to like this story. She says the series gets better in book two. Sadly, I’m not captured enough in this story to want to read the next book in the series. Instead, I would like to see this book filled out a little more. As I said, I believe this could be a great story, but I think the author needs to really get into the head or heads of her characters. Fill it out and make it feel real. Make us fall in love or hate with her characters. Make us feel what they are feeling!
I've rated this 2 out of 5 stars.
