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mlcreads's review against another edition
3.0
This is the first book in the series so there is lots of setting up of storylines. There are lots of characters to keep track of and because they are vampires there are "family" lines to keep in order. Cassie is a strong female lead and she really stands up for herself even when maybe she should keep quiet. Lots of action. A great read.
cassandra67b07's review against another edition
2.0
DNF. The info dumps and non stop frantic pace killed my interest. I made it to chapter 7 before giving up.
belleflamey's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure what to think about this. It began with great potential, but soon it became so convoluted with fights and random information that my attention span was waning... constantly. By the end of the book, I found myself scanning, not reading. I will give book 2 a go and see if it gets better because sometimes you can't tell with only one book. I do hope it improves!
wildfaeriecaps's review against another edition
5.0
I love that I still love this book even when I've read it so many times before.
kathrynreadsmuch's review against another edition
3.75
I started this as an audiobook, and I was struggling. Some of the intonations and emotions that narrator used just weren't working for me, and as a result, impacting my enjoyment of the story. I very much wanted to read it (I've had it on my TBR long enough), so I got the physical copy from the library. With just my internal voice, I enjoyed it a lot more. I'll read book 2, but not as an audiobook.
rmoon28's review against another edition
3.0
This book started off a little slow for me but the last half of the book picked up and it was very entertaining. The vampires are extremely sexy. I am excited for what will happen in the rest of the series.
isylyaeleni's review against another edition
1.0
It was just all cliches. 🤦🏻‍♀️ And not in an enjoyable way.
tessisreading2's review against another edition
1.0
Two major flaws: firstly, there was too much going on in this one; Chance goes all-out in the world-building and throws in everything but the kitchen sink, and we’re told about all of it in lengthy info-dumps.
Secondly, it was very, well, Laurell K. Hamilton in terms of the sexy, sexy morally ambiguous vampires (with long sexy hair) and that felt discomfiting; it’s not my thing. I’m going to spoiler-cut for discussion and examples of sexual assault and inappropriateness:
The age-gap is creepy, but in all honesty I find the sexual assault much creepier: the heroine finds this totally okay according to the morals and ethics of the vampire world, but I can’t forget that the author is the one designing and writing this world… and she decided to write sexy on-page rape committed by the romantic protagonist into the narrative. Yikes. A few chapters later Mircea attempts to seduce our narrator because the only way to save her from some bad guys (no, don’t worry about which, there’s too much going on) is for her to lose her virginity. This was also pretty discomfiting, because Mircea basically just starts groping her without explaining what’s going on, and then keeps going as she protests, argues, and stalls. When she finally gets him to stop, he goes down a long list of all the other sexxxy vampires she could have sex with instead.
Basically: this whole world is set up to maximize all the sexiness with no attention paid to issues of consent or sexual assault, because after all if you (the narrator or the reader) are aroused that makes everything okay. (Also, loss of virginity = PIV sex, consensual or not. Digital penetration doesn’t count, but PIV rape would. Again, yikes.)
I enjoyed Chance's Dorina Basarab series, and honestly would have kept reading this series if the sole issue had been everything-and-the-kitchen-sink (it's a debut novel, after all), but the eroticized sexual assault committed by a romantic protagonist (and the "no-means-yes" sex scene later on) just have me too wary to bother, because I have no idea when Chance figured out that this wasn't okay, or if she ever did in this series.
Secondly, it was very, well, Laurell K. Hamilton in terms of the sexy, sexy morally ambiguous vampires (with long sexy hair) and that felt discomfiting; it’s not my thing. I’m going to spoiler-cut for discussion and examples of sexual assault and inappropriateness:
Spoiler
There’s a long and highly-eroticized scene in which sexxxy vampire love interest Mircea, and eventually also his sexxxy vampire cohort, feed on an unwilling male prisoner until he climaxes, in front of multiple witnesses including our narrator/protagonist, for the explicit purpose of humiliating him. It is quite literally a rape scene. Later in the same scene Mircea feeds on our narrator (at her request, although she learns that another vampire had been feeding on her without her knowledge, which upsets her) which she finds a huge sexual turn-on… while remembering sitting on his lap as a child and how much she’d liked him then.The age-gap is creepy, but in all honesty I find the sexual assault much creepier: the heroine finds this totally okay according to the morals and ethics of the vampire world, but I can’t forget that the author is the one designing and writing this world… and she decided to write sexy on-page rape committed by the romantic protagonist into the narrative. Yikes. A few chapters later Mircea attempts to seduce our narrator because the only way to save her from some bad guys (no, don’t worry about which, there’s too much going on) is for her to lose her virginity. This was also pretty discomfiting, because Mircea basically just starts groping her without explaining what’s going on, and then keeps going as she protests, argues, and stalls. When she finally gets him to stop, he goes down a long list of all the other sexxxy vampires she could have sex with instead.
Basically: this whole world is set up to maximize all the sexiness with no attention paid to issues of consent or sexual assault, because after all if you (the narrator or the reader) are aroused that makes everything okay. (Also, loss of virginity = PIV sex, consensual or not. Digital penetration doesn’t count, but PIV rape would. Again, yikes.)
I enjoyed Chance's Dorina Basarab series, and honestly would have kept reading this series if the sole issue had been everything-and-the-kitchen-sink (it's a debut novel, after all), but the eroticized sexual assault committed by a romantic protagonist (and the "no-means-yes" sex scene later on) just have me too wary to bother, because I have no idea when Chance figured out that this wasn't okay, or if she ever did in this series.
ckjaer88's review against another edition
4.0
Yup! I still love this series.. and FYI: you get a lot more in the second and third read. And fifth ^^
It still gets my blood pumping and hours to go by without me knowing it.
It still gets my blood pumping and hours to go by without me knowing it.