This is the first book in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles. I bought it since the cover looks cool and the story sounded intriguing and I felt like reading a paranormal romance novel.
Blurb:
In every generation, a Gardella is called to accept the family legacy of vampire slaying, and this time, Victoria Gardella Grantworth is chosen, on the eve of her debut, to carry the stake. But as she moves between the crush of ballrooms and dangerous, moonlit streets, Victoria’s heart is torn between London’s most eligible bachelor, the Marquess of Rockley, and her enigmatic ally, Sebastian Vioget. And when she comes face to face with the most powerful vampire in history, Victoria must ultimately make the choice between duty and love.
What worked for me:
Pacing was good. It only took me about two days to finish this book. The secondary characters were interesting, although I didn’t care for the scenes with just Victoria’s mother and her friends.
The new twist (Buffy meets Pride & Prejudice) worked for me, and it presented some extra challenges for Victoria since a woman back then had to follow certain rules, etc. And the conflict hinted (see the blurb above) about Victoria’s duty as a slayer and longing for Rockley was interesting. I wished that the book was more focused about that than other miscellaneous stuff.
What didn’t work so well for me:
I found it rather unbelievable that Victoria’s maid knew so much about vampire slayers, etc. Also it was just weird that Victoria was impatient to be a vampire slayer without thinking about what it could mean to her normal life (like finding a husband, getting pregnant, etc.). She seemed very impetuous and thoughtless. It appears to me that she won some major battles because she was lucky not because she was resourceful and clever. For example, in one scene she was distracted by a handsome guy (Sebastian), then got attacked by a bunch of vamps and fainted (or something like that), but Max managed to rescue her because the vamps hadn’t taken her to the queen vamp. That whole thing just rang false. Why attack Victoria if not to kill or take her to the queen vamp?
And Lilith! It seems like a very popular name for a lot of bad girls in paranormal romance novels. But it’s getting old real fast. Demon Angel — Lilith. The Circle Trilogy — Lilith. And it goes on and on. I mean…I know something like Jennifer might not be suitable, but can we please get some other name? Now all the Liliths I’ve read about are just blending in my brain. And I’m comparing them…like so-and-so’s Lilith’s not as mean as the Lilith from so-and-so’s book.
And research — something just jerked me out of the story was the musicale. On p. 77, Gleason writes:
The seventh piece out of ten. More than half done. But…she looked closer at the list. There were four movements to each of the last three selections, instead of three.
Then it is revealed that the last piece on the program in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in Dm. That would be his Piano Concerto #20, which has three movements — Allegro, Romanze, and Allegro assai rondo. (And there’s no way that you can count cadenza as its own movement although Beethoven wrote one for the piece and was later added to the first movement.) This made me wonder if it was the author who was ignorant or if it was Victoria.
(BTW — strictly speaking Bach didn’t write piano concertos, at least if we’re talking about J.S. Bach, the most famous one out of the family. He wrote concertos for the harpsichord, which are played on the piano these days and inaccurately called piano concertos.)
Finally — the ending. (this is spoiler) Phillip’s death totally ruined the book for me because I was expecting HEA. Or at least a promise or a continuation of V&P’s quest for their own HEA. In Lilith Saintcrow’s Dante Valentine series, I was okay with the death twist because it wasn’t marketed as romance, but this book was labeled as paranormal romance. And I was totally upset about that. And again, I felt that it was Victoria’s fault that Phillip died, which made me like her less.
Overall: It was somewhat uneven and the ending didn’t work for me at all. But I think that some may really enjoy it.
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