This young adult vampire tale is better suited to horror
fans. Violet Lee, aged seventeen, is sitting alone in
Trafalgar Square even though she knows London is unsafe at
one in the morning. She then witnesses a mass murder and
the handful of people responsible take her along with them
instead of just killing her too. They turn out to be a
vampire coven and bring her to a palatial hideaway in Kent.
Part of the tale is told by a 'young' male vampire called
Kaspar.
I'm not a horror fan so the gory start to the book didn't
endear it to me, and the tone was maintained. While I'm
keen on urban fantasies, I usually find that after the
first few books they stop being adventures and go into
multilayered detail about who gives orders to whom, at
which point I lose interest. Well, THE DARK HEROINE did
that after the first couple of chapters. Violet is the
daughter of the Secretary for Defence so the vampires
decide to kidnap rather than kill her, though she
continually feels menaced and other captives are killed.
The British government it seems is well aware of lurking
vampires and even has treaties with them, and the coven's
ruler gives Violet protection from others. Even so her
destroying a stack of condoms belonging to a highly sexed
vampire man seems unlikely, if undead need such items that
is. There are child vampires and they grow to the age of
eighteen - one wonders if they used to grow to twenty-one.
There are also half vampires, or dhampirs, and when Violet
is sexually assaulted in a violent attack that leaves her
half dead, she is given vampire blood to turn her into a
dhampir in order to save her. The hope of the coven leader
is that she will voluntarily choose to become a vampire if
left with them long enough, Stockholm syndrome not being
named but clearly the aim.
Between strong language and the violence and adult content,
I would give a parental advisory; this is not 'Twilight'.
Abigail Gibbs has clearly spent a lot of time rethinking
the vampire myth and correctly impresses on us that yes,
they are predators and teenage girls should stop thinking
hopelessly romantic thoughts about violent older men.
Adult horror fans, however, may love it.
When party girl Violet Lee stumbles upon the charming and wicked vampire Kaspar Varn, she embarks on a dangerous adventure through London’s darkest streets and poshest neighborhoods. As their attraction isundeniable, the pair succumb to their desires, but at what cost?
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