I bet every author who ever slaved over lines of prose is real happy about everyone being able to read for free. I never did understand how giving away books is the way to make money, but it's a different world from my youth. Anyway - let me tell you about this book I read. I got it free off Bookbub.
Real Vampires Don't Sparkle by Amy Facteau.
Matheus Taylor didn’t ask to be murdered. To be fair, the percentage of people actually asking to be
murdered is probably small enough to be safely ignored, but he felt it was
worth stating regardless. His life might have been ordinary, but it was his life
and he wasn’t done with it yet.
Quin didn’t care. A seventeen-hundred old Roman, Quintus Livius Saturnius had
a different view of morality than most people. Killing Matheus and hijacking
his undead existence seemed perfectly acceptable to him.
Now, Matheus spends his nights running for his life,
questioning his sexual orientation, and defying a mysterious new threat to the
vampires within his city.
Not that he set out to do any defying; he just wanted to be
left alone. Unfortunately, that was never going to happen.
I like a good vampire story. This one got off on the right foot with me simply by spelling vampire with an "i" and not a "y". It opened with Matheus being attacked by the vampire and went on to detail his transformation woes, of which there were many. Matheus tried to be tough, but it was pretty clear he fell in love with his sire.
Here you'd think the author would roll out the sex, but no. (The book is remarkably lacking in that department for my taste but it kept me reading in hope.) A quirky cast of characters is introduced, the dialogue takes off, and the author builds a grandiose shadow-world right in suburbia's back yard.
The author is very good with witty, sarcastic dialogue. The first half of the book certainly entertained. But after awhile, Matheus' snark wore a little thin. Railing against that which cannot be changed is immature. I expected him to act that way immediately after the transformation, but he didn't work past it.
It was also at the halfway point the author got a little "wordy." I was reminded of the Book of Matthew. Matthew's scribe never used ten words when thirty would suffice. The prose could have been shortened, much like this review.
All in all, a good read that held my attention all the way through. The author might be too wordy which is a shame because all the snark gets in the way. She's got a good vocabulary but the smartass dialogue makes it come across as condescending at times. Teenagers would probably love it.
My major complaint - the story simply stopped. Boom. Done. I'm on the fence about buying the sequel for fear it, too, will end in the middle of nowhere.
TW
