Review: A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

A Shade of Vampire

Author: Bella Forrest

Publication Date: December 14, 2012

Genre: Fantasy

Thank you to Bella Forrest for the review copy!!

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Synopsis:

On the evening of Sofia Claremont's seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake.

A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood. 

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine.

An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains. 

Sofia's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince. 

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? ...or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks?

My Thoughts: This is a short novel but definitely one vampire lovers should pick up.  Sadly, I think I may never had read it had it not received a request to review it - which would have been my loss.  I really loved how this book took the vampire lore back to how it is supposed to me.  There were no glittering vampires, no magical daylight rings.  There were just vampires who couldn't stand in the sunlight and were blood thirsty and could be killed with a wooden stake through the heart.

Sofia Claremont's only wish is not to go crazy.  Which sounds weird, but after seeing her mother slowly go insane and thinking she may have the same disorder makes her fear for the worst.  One night, after getting into a fight with her bestie Ben (who she happens to have more-than-bestie feelings for) she is abducted from the beach where she was taking a walk only to wake up in the Blood Shade.  The Blood Shade where vampires are real, humans are chained and slaved and her only hope of survival is their newly-awakened prince.

This was a short novel, so things tended to go a little quick but I liked it.  The fast-paced flow made sense to the story and didn't have you stopping to think that is was unrealistic at all (well, other than the vampires but who doesn't love a little vampire now and then?).  Though, when there is no sun in the sky I guess it would get rather hard to tell days from nights so the days kind of blurred for the main characters in my eyes and I am not quite certain how long they had been together.  Regardless of that, it seemed perfectly fitting with the story.

I also loved the characters, pretty much all of them.  I thought a couple could have been more developed but when I found out that this was only the first one in a series I was a bit more forgiving on that factor.  I felt like I knew the main characters well enough which was great and I fully expect the others to be fleshed out more in the upcoming book(s) and I look forward to it.

Sofia and Derek felt like opposites of each other, but it also felt like they completed each other as well - like they were two halves to one whole.  What she lacked he had and vice versa and they seemed to feed off of each other and adapt and become more than what they were.  Derek's transformation because of Sofia is more apparent since he struggles a lot more but Sofia's changes are evident as well.

This book was a short, sweet and quick read but once I stopped I couldn't put it down.  I loved how it took me back to the vampires of old.  I can't wait to pick up the next book in this series when it is released.