Rating: WORTHY!
The vampire bookseller! Yes, that was what lured me in! I picked this up on spec from the local library (bless their little cotton pages!). Books are just like relationships, and if you've been bit as many times as I have by book blurbs, you tend to get book-shy, especially if it's a book in a genre that you're not given to reading. In my case, I am not a fan of vampire stories, but once in a while one comes along which shakes things up enough to keep it interesting. This was such a novel.
This is clearly intended to be the start of a series, and I am not inclined to follow series because they are way too repetitive and uninventive. They're a really lazy way of writing novels, and I have little time for them, with few exceptions, so this will be the only one of this series that I read.
The basic premise is that there are two factions on the side of good. One is Valerie McTeague, the bookseller, and the other is Elly Garret, who has been trained by a member of an order which destroys vampires. To make it really interesting, there are tow kinds of vampire,s and this come right out of Vampire Academy. I liked the first couple of novels, and I loved the movie, but I went off the series pretty quickly because Le Stupide was strong with that one. So Elly is really Rose, but there is no Lissa.
There are strigoi and moroi here, but the bad guys are called 'jackals' or 'creeps' - and at least they have some motivation for their behavior here, although how the two groups a differentiated into each class of vampire is a mystery. They are, and we're expected to accept it on faith. One group is suave, sophisticated and trope vampire, the other is stinky, primitive, savage, and low-life. It's really just class warfare, royalty v. peons. Differentiation between good and bad vampires is nonsensical to me, and represents nothing more than a ridiculous modern trope added to vampire lore for the benefit of undiscriminating teen readers.
Trope runs rife through this story: vampires live in hives and are allergic to holy water, can't cross hallowed ground, can't come out in daylight, are allergic to silver, allergic to holy water, and can be killed with a wooden stake - but it has to be Rowan wood! Why, I have no idea. None of this lore makes any sense to me (and isn't explained here) so any attempts to put vampires on a pseudo-scientific basis by talking of virally-transmitted disease and what-not, is bullshit. Vampires are cold (yet move superfast?!), they have no heartbeat, no blood circulation, so how does their body receive nutrition from the blood they drink? By magic! That's the only "explanation" so as far as I'm concerned, paranormal writers can shove their bullshit science! It makes no sense, so don't insult me by trying to make it make sense. Just tell the freaking story!
This author does bring in one or two new items (at least new to me, maybe these are ripped off from elsewhere, too. I can't say), such as a magical element, whereby "runes" are used as wards against vampire incursion, but they're pretty useless since they really don't hold the vampires back. The driver in this story is that there's a magical book which the bad vamps want, and which has fallen into the possession of the good guys. Why this book is not immediately destroyed is the biggest plot hole in the entire novel. It is of no value in fighting the vamps, so there's absolutely no reason whatsoever for keeping it around, Burn the book and everything that follows, including death and destruction, will never happen. Obviously this is why the book isn't burned (there would have been no novel otherwise!), but it made no sense and was a huge disbelief inducement! If you're going to do this, please find a reason why it cannot be destroyed, don't just let this hang out unquestioned, and unexplained!
That said, I liked many of the characters in the novel, especially Val and Elly, who I thought might become an item, but who did not. I liked that the story moved fast and there wasn't any vampire worship going on. I liked that Val wasn't a thousand years old and absurdly falling for some teen-aged guy. She wasn't and she didn't. There was no dumb-ass romance here, for which I was ludicrously grateful. I liked the two succubi (yeah, it's that kind of kitchen sink story). A novel about them might be worth reading, but this is about this novel, and was it worthy of my time? Overall, and despite the issues, yes to me it was and on that basis I recommend it.
