A Shade of Vampire (A Shade of Vampire #1)
Author: Bella Forrest
YA Paranormal Romance
3 out of 5 Stars
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 Review By Lauren Henry
Sofia Claremont
is kidnapped on her 17th birthday by a sadistic vampire, Lucas. She awakes to find herself on a remote island
inhabited by vampires of The Shade and their human slaves and companions. Her sole purpose for being captured was to
become a part of The Shade’s Prince’s harem.
Derek Novak, the Prince and brother to Lucas, has just awakened from a
spell induced slumber. A harem is the
last thing on his mind. When Sofia and
the rest of the kidnapped teenagers are thrust upon him, his first thoughts are
bloodlust and hunger. He barely can
restrain himself from killing Sofia when he looks upon her beautiful face.
A Shade of
Vampire is narrated by both Sofia Claremont and Derek Novak. Through Sofia’s eyes, you get a glimpse of
The Shade’s habitat and lifestyle. The
fictional island and domain of which The Shade inhabits is interesting
enough. It is surrounded by an
impenetrable wall, spell-bound to be in perpetual darkness, has vase caves, and
the vampires live in suspended tree penthouses.
I was curious to know more about the animals mentioned in the book that
used to live in the forest and to get a glimpse of the “catacombs”, an irony
mentioned. Other than those small
complaints, I was intrigued by this island and left wanted to know more about
its history. As for their lifestyle, The
Shade is a monarchy ruled by the Novak family but also has some sort of caste
system. Humans, taken for either slave
labor or companionship, are at the bottom of this caste system while the
Novak’s are at the top. There is an
Elite class and then there are soldiers and wandering vampires that have come
to The Shade for protection, more or less.
I wish the author delved a little deeper into the classes of vampires so
that we, the reader, could get a better understanding of The Shade as a
society.
Through Derek
Novak’s eyes, you are reintroduced to The Shade hundreds of years after it was
founded. He is not pleased to be
awakened at first but quickly falls for Sofia, and escorts her and his new
harem through The Shade. During this
process he learns that considerable changes that have been made and the
progression of the island and its inhabitants is something of a living dream. He begins to gain knowledge about the current
trends in fashion and technology with the help of Sofia, and slowly, they both
begin to get accustomed to their surroundings, Derek for the second time and
Sofia as a somewhat prisoner. There are
scenes with Derek that I enjoy; ones with The Shade’s on call witch, with his
psychic sister, and some precious moments of clarity when he stops being a
vampire Prince and starts acting a little more human. Then there are scenes with Derek that leave
me exasperated. He is drawn to Sofia by
an act of kindness, her loveliness, and naturally, her humanity. She is the epitome of all the beauty he has
missed during those years asleep YET he tries to kill her, painfully restrains
her, and gives her little hope for the future so HOW does he fall into her good
grace? Good question. I can’t really answer that. There wasn’t enough character development of
Derek for me to root for him and Sofia; in fact, I wanted to slap her silly on
a number of occasions for her looking past ALL of his character flaws. I have high hopes that in the sequel of The
Shade of Vampire, Bella Forrest can develop all of her characters and give us a
good reason to cheer for this budding relationship.
A Shade of a
Vampire has some big plot twists for such a small book. It ends with a HUGE cliffhanger and will keep
you on the edge of your seat. It needed
to be a bit longer for me personally! I
would still recommend this book regardless and will be curious to see what
happens in the sequel.
Author Info:
For more information about Bella and her works, you can find her below:
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