Review: A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

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Title: A Shade of Vampire
Author: Bella Forrest
Genre: Young Adult: Paranormal, Paranormal
Format: eBook from Author
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USA, paperback | USA, eBook | UK, paperback | UK, eBook

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?

 

At last! A book with a synopsis that I actually remembered! I did know what to expect when I started reading the book. First off, I’d like to thank Bella Forrest for gifting me a copy of this book to review.

Vampires now-a-days are extremely overrated. But writers still take the old and worn out concept and try so hard to make it their own, whether it’s a short story like this one or a full length novel. A Shade of Vampire is one of many vampire short stories and unfortunately, I wasn’t at all fascinated by it.

In all fairness, I did get really enthralled by the synopsis and I liked the thought of the kidnapper falling for his captive and eventually, keeping her from safe from his fellow “kidnappers”. But when I read the book, it really wasn’t what I expected. The “captive”, Sofia was very whiny and her whininess literally started from when the book began till it ended. She whined, self-doubted herself, thought herself as nothing, and all that no self-esteem nonsense. Maybe if there was more character development, I would be able to understand and tolerate Sofia better. But sadly, I didn’t and I went on reading with my eye twitching trying to tolerate her. Fortunately enough, she did have her shining moments that made her a little bit more likeable and even sweet at times.

As Sofia was kidnapped to be part of Derek Novak’s Harem, Derek notices her first amongst many girls in his Harem. Why? Because she held more courage and compassion than the rest of the human girls around Sofia *face palm*. Everyone knows what comes next; he immediately falls in love with her and then they go through a few trails together and then the book ends happily with them in each other arms.

Yes, I don’t like the characters very much but on there is a bright side. I really liked how well constructed the world of The Blood Shade Island, which is a secluded sunless paradise for vampires being hunted. The description of the place and how everything worked was spot on and beautiful in a simple sort of way.

The short story was very predictable, the characters were barely tolerable, the concept and scenario were wonderful and with a little bit refinement, depth and realism to the characters. I think Bella will be able to make this short series even better. I won’t give up on the series because I have hope the second book will be better.