A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

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?

Pic and description from Goodreads.com
 

My Review

      I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

   There have been so many vampire books lately and like a lot of people I have become a huge fan.  Unfortunately this book did not end up being that great.  Not that it is bad, just not wonderful, and with all the competition out there vampire books have to be pretty great to compete.

   I did not like the story line very much.  The vampires in this story are more like a gang of slave traffickers than a coven of scary vampires.  Their whole society is dependent on them kidnapping young beautiful people to fill their harems and provide whatever other services they need.  That is just not my cup of tea.  When the heroin, Sophia, is first taken she is almost raped by one of the vampires.  Ok, I know that vampires are bad guys and that rape is a very real thing, but I really don’t like reading about it and I don’t think it belongs anywhere in YA books.

   Another thing that bothered me is that the vampires lived on a hidden island complete with a crazy tree top village where they all lived.  To me this sounds more like a fairy/elf type set up then anywhere vampires would live.

   All that being said there were some good things about the book.  I did like the overall writing of the book.  The author did a great job with the character development and with her ability to draw you in to their stories.  Derek, the leaders of the coven, is a very complex character and is not at all what you would expect for a vampire prince.  He kind of goes back and forth with his humanity and for some reason Sophia is able to reach that side of him in a way no one else ever has.  I also liked Sophia’s character.  She is very feisty and she stands up to the vampires very courageously even when she is desperately scared.  She forms a very special bond with Derek and you can feel the love develop between the two of them throughout the story.  Then there is Lucas, Derek’s evil brother, and boy did the author do a great job in creating a truly believable, truly evil character.  He is one twisted person with some deep seeded issues. 

   Really the great characters were the only redeeming quality of this book.  In fact I did like the relationship between Sophia and Derek so much that I am thinking about overlooking the other stuff and reading the second book just to find out if they can make it work and steer around the mess that is Lucas.  What can I say?  I am a sucker for a good, believable romance story.

Parent's Guide:  There is some swearing throughout the book.  The young humans that are kidnapped are used as slaves, including sexually, but there is nothing explicit.  There is a murder in the book that is a bit brutal and very disturbing.