Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by kateywumpus
The Warrior Within, #1 by Brooke Campbell
5.0
Warning: Spoilers...
This is a good one, folks. A romance novel that breaks all the tropes. The main character has chronic pain that she has to live with, a kind of disease that's related to arthritis. She actually has to struggle with it throughout the novel, which is actually kind of nice. So many protagonists are shown as perfect that it's nice to see somebody actually human. She has a part time job because she can't sit in one place too long without causing pain, which means that she's kind of broke. She struggles financially, having to compromise between buying clothes and getting good food.
On top of that, her relationship with the vampire lead is rather realistic. The vampire spikes her drinks with vampire blood to ease her pain, and when the protagonist finds out she feels hurt and betrayed, and it actually takes a while for trust to be restored. She's independent and prideful, and has a hard time accepting charity and gifts from her vampire lover. I identify with that so hard. It's like... you need the money, but you don't want to be a burden to others. I've been there.
The truly great thing about this book is that the protagonist is put through traumatic events, due to the villain kidnapping her a couple of times and torturing her. She friggin' gets PTSD from these things and has to deal with that. I've never read a book where the protagonist has to deal with PTSD before. It's displayed realistically, and the protagonist actually goes to therapy to help deal with it. This is amazing, folks. Also, after she was kidnapped and tortured the second time, the vampires offer her blood to heal all her wounds and she refuses! She'd rather live with her scars. I fully expected them to turn her by the end of the book, and that never happened.
This is the author's first book, and if this is a sample of the quality of her writing, I look forward to what she has to publish in the future.
This is a good one, folks. A romance novel that breaks all the tropes. The main character has chronic pain that she has to live with, a kind of disease that's related to arthritis. She actually has to struggle with it throughout the novel, which is actually kind of nice. So many protagonists are shown as perfect that it's nice to see somebody actually human. She has a part time job because she can't sit in one place too long without causing pain, which means that she's kind of broke. She struggles financially, having to compromise between buying clothes and getting good food.
On top of that, her relationship with the vampire lead is rather realistic. The vampire spikes her drinks with vampire blood to ease her pain, and when the protagonist finds out she feels hurt and betrayed, and it actually takes a while for trust to be restored. She's independent and prideful, and has a hard time accepting charity and gifts from her vampire lover. I identify with that so hard. It's like... you need the money, but you don't want to be a burden to others. I've been there.
The truly great thing about this book is that the protagonist is put through traumatic events, due to the villain kidnapping her a couple of times and torturing her. She friggin' gets PTSD from these things and has to deal with that. I've never read a book where the protagonist has to deal with PTSD before. It's displayed realistically, and the protagonist actually goes to therapy to help deal with it. This is amazing, folks. Also, after she was kidnapped and tortured the second time, the vampires offer her blood to heal all her wounds and she refuses! She'd rather live with her scars. I fully expected them to turn her by the end of the book, and that never happened.
This is the author's first book, and if this is a sample of the quality of her writing, I look forward to what she has to publish in the future.