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stjehanne 's review for:
My Viking Vampire
by Krystal Shannan
My Viking Vampire is about a woman named Bailey who randomly meets a sexy vampire guy, Erick Thorson, and falls madly in love with him in the span of like, an hour. Also, her violent ex-husband is following her, as well as some supernatural being. Exciting!
To be honest, I can't believe I actually finished this one. I'm not sure if I regret it.
See, I usually read these kinds of books to relax. All I am looking for is some serotonin and some entertainment. However, My Viking Vampire just made me irrationally angry for a number of reason. Here's a handy list of some of those reasons:
1. Let's start with the writing style first. It's just a little weird. Sometimes, things (and I'm specifically referring to the attacks on Bailey here) just happen without any build-up. No foreshadowing, nothing quite leading up to them. Blink and you'll miss them. Bailey goes from getting dressed in the morning to almost dying in a heartbeat.
Yes, I know these scenes are meant to be shocking / surprising but they actually contradict the world building. Sanctuary is supposed to be a relatively safe place, full of magic and protective wards. Still, nobody sees this evil human (!) ex-husband coming? After Bailey mentioned his evilness a bunch of times? After she expresses the fear that he could follow her here?
2. Speaking of Sanctuary: Its inhabitants are surprisingly boring. They all follow the same basic formula:
Kind of supernatural being + function in the town + how much they wanna sleep with / kill / protect Bailey = Character.
Erick is by far the worst offender here, since we're also forced to spend a lot of time with him. He never changes, he always stays the same. Honestly, he has the personality of a cardboard box. His main defining features are his love (?) for Bailey, the fact that he's a vampire and... I guess he's also really into BDSM. Other than that, there's not much going on with him. Character development? I don't know her.
3. And this leads me to my next point. The BDSM thing. Yeah. That kinda plays a huge role. Bailey is immensely traumatized by the things that her ex-husband put her through. She's especially afraid of the sound of whips and the feeling of being restrained. To Erick's credit, he never quite forces her to engage in any kind of bondage or other forms of kinky sex with him. However, BDSM is seems to be such a huge part of his identity that living a life without appears to be at least a bit of problem and he deals with this in a strange way.
He (gently) pushes Bailey to try things out with him, claiming that this is a way of working through her fears. But if this is really a form of therapy... why must it have something to do with sex? Bailey never openly talks about what her ex did to her, she hints at things, yes, she gives Erick some details but he never quite hears the whole story. She repeatedly tells him that she's not ready and that she might never be ready to engage in any kind of kink with him. He just ignores that part in the end, asking her again and again to "play" with him until she finally says yes.
Is this safe? Shouldn't she talk to someone who could actually help her first, someone professional? I just feel as if there were a lot of better ways to handle this part of the story but I'd be happy to be educated by someone who knows more about trauma than I do.
4. My last thought: There's not much love in this book but a lot of lust. The pacing of the romance is ridiculous, Bailey and Erick never get to know each other. They mostly express their love by having sex and sudden feelings of arousal when they look at each other. And this is fine, don't get me wrong! A healthy sex life is a wonderful thing! But these two are effectively strangers. It would have been nice to see them growing closer, maybe even going on dates. Doing anything that doesn't involve sex or waiting to have sex.
All in all, My Viking Vampire just bored me a bit. Interesting things (e.g. Bailey turning into a vampire) usually happen off-screen. The initially interesting setting quickly becomes a bit confusing and / or tedious (Yeah, I didn't really care about the process of food production, sorry). I could go on and on about all the tiny details that bothered me but I think I've said enough at this point.
This was, obviously, not my cup of tea. But let's imagine you're not really interested in plot at all and just wanna read the smut parts. I guess in this case this could be a decent read!
To be honest, I can't believe I actually finished this one. I'm not sure if I regret it.
See, I usually read these kinds of books to relax. All I am looking for is some serotonin and some entertainment. However, My Viking Vampire just made me irrationally angry for a number of reason. Here's a handy list of some of those reasons:
1. Let's start with the writing style first. It's just a little weird. Sometimes, things (and I'm specifically referring to the attacks on Bailey here) just happen without any build-up. No foreshadowing, nothing quite leading up to them. Blink and you'll miss them. Bailey goes from getting dressed in the morning to almost dying in a heartbeat.
Yes, I know these scenes are meant to be shocking / surprising but they actually contradict the world building. Sanctuary is supposed to be a relatively safe place, full of magic and protective wards. Still, nobody sees this evil human (!) ex-husband coming? After Bailey mentioned his evilness a bunch of times? After she expresses the fear that he could follow her here?
2. Speaking of Sanctuary: Its inhabitants are surprisingly boring. They all follow the same basic formula:
Kind of supernatural being + function in the town + how much they wanna sleep with / kill / protect Bailey = Character.
Erick is by far the worst offender here, since we're also forced to spend a lot of time with him. He never changes, he always stays the same. Honestly, he has the personality of a cardboard box. His main defining features are his love (?) for Bailey, the fact that he's a vampire and... I guess he's also really into BDSM. Other than that, there's not much going on with him. Character development? I don't know her.
3. And this leads me to my next point. The BDSM thing. Yeah. That kinda plays a huge role. Bailey is immensely traumatized by the things that her ex-husband put her through. She's especially afraid of the sound of whips and the feeling of being restrained. To Erick's credit, he never quite forces her to engage in any kind of bondage or other forms of kinky sex with him. However, BDSM is seems to be such a huge part of his identity that living a life without appears to be at least a bit of problem and he deals with this in a strange way.
He (gently) pushes Bailey to try things out with him, claiming that this is a way of working through her fears. But if this is really a form of therapy... why must it have something to do with sex? Bailey never openly talks about what her ex did to her, she hints at things, yes, she gives Erick some details but he never quite hears the whole story. She repeatedly tells him that she's not ready and that she might never be ready to engage in any kind of kink with him. He just ignores that part in the end, asking her again and again to "play" with him until she finally says yes.
Is this safe? Shouldn't she talk to someone who could actually help her first, someone professional? I just feel as if there were a lot of better ways to handle this part of the story but I'd be happy to be educated by someone who knows more about trauma than I do.
4. My last thought: There's not much love in this book but a lot of lust. The pacing of the romance is ridiculous, Bailey and Erick never get to know each other. They mostly express their love by having sex and sudden feelings of arousal when they look at each other. And this is fine, don't get me wrong! A healthy sex life is a wonderful thing! But these two are effectively strangers. It would have been nice to see them growing closer, maybe even going on dates. Doing anything that doesn't involve sex or waiting to have sex.
All in all, My Viking Vampire just bored me a bit. Interesting things (e.g. Bailey turning into a vampire) usually happen off-screen. The initially interesting setting quickly becomes a bit confusing and / or tedious (Yeah, I didn't really care about the process of food production, sorry). I could go on and on about all the tiny details that bothered me but I think I've said enough at this point.
This was, obviously, not my cup of tea. But let's imagine you're not really interested in plot at all and just wanna read the smut parts. I guess in this case this could be a decent read!