Book Review: Cemetery Candles

Hi readers, 

Today, I'm reviewing a book I read in early January. I can't remember how I heard about this book, maybe it was on a list of good vampire novels or I just stumbled across it whilst looking for something else. Anyway, the price tag of this book was high and I don't know why really, maybe it's self-published? but I had to wait till it was reduced to get it anyway and I'm glad I did. 

Candles is far from a typical vampire romance novel. Actually it's a little confusing because it starts with a vampire, Victor, - though he does a god job of hiding it - hiring a tutor for his young nephew and we get introduced to Victor, his nephew, Teo and their world through the eyes of the tutor, Valentina. It becomes clear that Victor and Valentina are falling in love but then Valentina sees Victor with another woman, Suzette, and they appear to be very close. 

Then there's a total switch in the story and we leave the 'present' with Valentina and Victor to go back into the past - 1700's-where we get most of Suzette's story. This is a really nicely told historic tale and it also has typical tragic events. Suzette meets and falls in love with Ivan who is a vampire. Ivan turns Suzette, who has a good job working as a doctor, into a vampire. Years later, Suzette and Victor met and fall in love. Sadly, the novel ends before we get to see Suzette make Victor into a vampire though we are aware it will happen. 

Whilst reading this book I wasn't sure what to make of it. The style of writing is a bit odd because its' third person present tense which isn't often written in. The flow though is fine and it doesn't jump around the years too badly. I don't think that being divided into two different time settings works though and I think it would have been better to take out the first part with Valentina and just expand the second part with the vampires. Clearly, it's been written like this to draw more people in and to set things up for later books. Yep, this is the first in a series. 

The one thing that really made me like this book was the different portraying of vampires. There is hardly any violence and fighting and love making that is very often attached to serial vampire books. I do enjoy all of that but its nice to read something different and see vampires in a different light. The real conflict in this novel comes from a strange problem to do with true love. A vampire can fall in love and be with a mortal, but when the vampire turns that lover into a vampire, the lover no longer feels true love for the vampire. 

So, there's a load of heartbroken vampires trying to be with other vampires who can't love them back. A good example of this goes; Ivan and Suzette fall in love but then when he makes her into a vampire, Suzette finds she can no longer love him so deeply back. Then she falls in love with Victor. She actually puts off making Victor into a vampire because she knows that will change the love between them. 

I do understand the workings of this, but for me and especially as this is supernatural romance, it doesn't sit that well with me. However, I do like the originality of this but I feel that being a vampire is cursed enough and not being able to be with your true love is just frustrating!    

The characters are very interesting and you do get a lot of development. I wish more time could have been spent with Valentina though, I feel she got pushed to the side by Suzette's story. I do feel like more work was needed on these characters and maybe because it's the first book the characters will grew further. 

Overall, this is a nice different vampire novel and once you get into it and over the style of writing, it does draw you in. It's a quick read too and interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. Am I going to buy the second book though? It's on my list, but until next year and when the price has really come down! I won't be getting it. I've far too many books and manga on my list right now that unless - like with with Miss Peregrine - I find another book I'm seriously addicted too! 

Thanks for reading and see you all next week. 

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25798192-montenegro-book-one)

Lords of the Underworld: The Darkest Passion Review - 'Can Aeron -Immortal Keeper of Wrath- sacrifice himself for love?'

 

 



Hey everyone, the next chapter of DD is taken sometime to get written mostly because of my writer's block and my struggles to get motivated to write it. So, I thought I'd keep myself, the blog and the readership going by putting up a book review. (I was going to do this anyway, but the second DD chapter was meant to come first, but anyways.) So I've literal just finished reading and thought I'd get start straight away whilst its' still all in my head. So here we go!

The Darkest Passion is book five in Gena Showalter's supernatural romance series Lords of the Underworld. Now, like my last book review, I'll have to do some backtracking but that shouldn't take long and anyway there's a lot of similarities between the LOTU and BDB books. I got into both series through my best friend and though I do prefer the BDB books, I get the same level of enjoyment out of the LOTU. They say book covers play a massive part in getting people to buy the book and LOTU have some very attractive covers! Topless men-very hot looking men-posing around showing off their butterfly tattoos with a range of colourful backgrounds. It makes it hard to pick a favourite....No, I'm not going to say!

The first book is The Darkest Night in which we are introduced to the Lords and learn some of their history. Now like with BDB- and no I'm not going to stop comparing them!- the books can be read as stand alone because Showalter has this great habit of filling the reader in with what has happened before. This can get annoying in series books, especially when the writer knows that the reader will have read the first one, but these supernatural romance books are designed so that they can easily be read by anyone. Of course like BDB the second plot is very liner and you do need to read the books to full understand this, but if you are only interested in love and sex, then I guess that's not important.

Okay, so love and sex do interest me, but that's not 100% why I read this genre. I like the second plot and I get very drawn to the characters. I also get caught up in the whole mystery of how the main characters will get together, how they'll get over the first bumps in their relationship and how it all turns out. I also like the writing style of this genre and I'm finding that it mostly stays the same, no matter the writer-granted some are better written-I like the fast pace, the tension created between the lovers and their current situation relating to the second plot. I love the action scenes of fights and arguments and plans going well or wrong. I like the slowing down of the love scenes too, though these can be just as fast, but most times the books do get the balance right and its not all fast tense action.

The structure of the books is just the same as BDB. Each book tells the story of one Lord and how he finds his soul mate. The second plot story tells of the Lords' war against their enemies the Hunters. Unlike the Lessers in BDB though, the Hunters are all human and they are against the Lords because they believe that the demons are to blame for all the worlds' problems. This we learn is only true in parts though. The third plot is the Lords' search for Pandora's box and four artefacts that will led them to it. This ties in with the war because the Hunters are also searching for the items to lock the demons back up again. The fourth plot is very in the background because it has to do with the focus switching to other characters and the current events in their lives. Mostly these plot lines are not important and are just led in to other books or hints at information that will be made clearer later. The books are told in the 3rd person point of view. The focus does stay on the main Lord and his lover, but it switches to other Lords, important Hunter characters and other characters who pop up. However, this switching doesn't affect the main plot and most of the information we learn from the other characters is important and gives the reader some time away from the lovers. We also have the thoughts of the demons and conversations between them and the Lords. This works well and gives more depth to the novels, it also shows how much the demons effect the Lords and that they play a major part in their lives.

The Lords then? I'll try and not give spoils to the books, but here's the basic background. The story takes the Greek tale of Pandora and the box. Everyone knows this tale and its' been retold in so many different ways and mediums. Showalter has a few twists to her retelling and we learn these across the series. The Greek Gods created a band of warriors-called Lords-to defend them. They created the box and put all the world's evils inside it. Pandora was chosen to look after it. When the box was opened and all the evils escaped, the other Lords were responsible for opening the box and killing Pandora-because they were jealous she had been chosen over all of them- were punished by having a evil- which is called a demon in the series-placed inside of them. They were then cast out of Heaven on to Earth, where they're demons took over and for years they destroyed anything. They do manage to find a level of control and can now balance their demon sides. Now the demons are really interesting and there's so many of them! Here's a few of them; Death, Violence, Wrath, Defeat, Lies, Doubt, Pain, Misery and Disease. They do as their name says and feed off it too, they become really unhappy if that can't happen and are effected by the opposite talking place. Like Lies can't tell the truth and for him to do so would equal in a lot pain happening to his body. Lots going on there then. A group of the Lords live in Budapest in a massive hidden house. However, they do go outside and when they are seen people believe them to be angels etc and are in awe of them.

That's understandable from Showalter's descriptions of her Lords. They all have this perfect man image to them, but because they are immortal that's like times by ten. Of course this plays up to woman readers male fantasies, but that's completely expected in this genre. To be honest if this was a group of ugly men it just wouldn't work! So, Showalter creates these dream hunks and then gives them all a dark background, which they have to deal with and of course they all come to terms with their pasts in some way. All of these pasts link to the actions of their demons and the opening of the box. They regret the problems they have caused for humans, but there's nothing they can do. They now try to behave though and only punish those who deserve it.

The women characters in this series work on the same level as they did in BDB. The women are strong-sometimes even stronger then the men!-fast thinking, know what they want and how to get it. There's no damsels in distress here! We get to see their soft sides from the males' pov though and this does work, because it reminds the readers of the difference between the sexes and also because Showalter still needs to show these characters as being women. They are really strong heroines though and this is reflected in their thoughts and actions away from the males. Most of these women are not normal humans, (in BDB we had a mix of human, vampire, half-vampire and ghost), whilst some of them are humans they have supernatural powers that they only become full aware of and can name when they meet their lovers. Others though are minor goddess, harpies, angels, female Lords and possible others -I've not read the rest of the books, only up the 6th now-. Having them all different works to a good story telling advantage as more back stories, settings, tension and mystery can be created.

The hunter characters are made out to be the opposite of the Lords. Which is a strange thing to realise, because you'd think that having a demon inside of you would make you evil and so the Hunters should be the good guys because they want to stop the evil, but no. The demons are portrayed in a different light, okay this doesn't make them good as such, but it shows that they are different now and being controlled. The demons can't be blamed for all the worlds' evils as was once believed. Thus the Hunters are shown to be the evil ones because they want to unleash the demons back on the world-granted they understand that they need to put them into the box because that's the only way humans can be safe again-but sometimes they are so determined to kill they forget. The hunters basically want someone else to blame for their problems and they pick on the Lords. The other characters in this are either Gods, angels, demons from hell and background humans. I really like the way that Showalter has done the Gods and Goddess. Her research into the Greeks come out here and there's a realistic sense with these characters. These characters do play important parts across the books....but that would be spoilers! The other characters do work well and we get to see development across the board with everyone. Which works, because you can't have a mix of 3D and 2/1D characters.

So what is book five, The Darkest Passion about? The main story is about Aeron, the keeper of the demon of Wrath and his relationship with Olivia a fallen angel Wrath likes to punish and kill people who've committed sins and Olivia being an angel is completely pure and so he is attracted to her. However, Olivia recently became a warrior angel was meant to kill Aeron as punishment for taking a small demon, Legion, out of hell. (Back story to this was that Aeron was asked to kill four woman, one of whom turned out to be something very special. He refused and ended up going crazy with killing lust. His friends decided to lock him up close to Hell to keep him safe- you know because that's what you have to do when this kind of stuff happens! Trapped there, a demon hears him and comes to keep him company. When the killing lust fades, Aeron returns with the demon). But Olivia is in love with Aeron and can't do it, so she is kicked out of Heaven and becomes fallen.

Aeron takes care of her though he is determined to get rid of her, because though he has feelings for her, he knows it can never be. Olivia wants him desperately and tried a number of things to get him to let her stay. Her angel mentor comes to them both at different times. He tells Aeron not to soil Olivia but to show her his world, so that she'd want to come back to Heaven. He then gives Olivia a few days to have her fun and then she must return to Heaven and kill Aeron. Of course they fall in love, though it is a very rocky road. Legion becomes really jealous because she wants Aeron too, but he sees her as a daughter, so she sets out to change that. Also she can't be around when the angel is and that bugs her. When Legion returns, Aeron finds himself stuck in a dilemma and has to choice between her and Olivia to save his friends and his life. Of course, things don't go to plan and in the end Aeron comes to see his only way out which is in the hands of Olivia's mentor. And of course whilst this is going on the Lords are fighting the Hunters, looking for the third artefact and living their own lives.

About halfway through the book, when I knew I was going to be writing about it, I got my critical brain thinking about a number of things. Most of it was the literature stuff, but one side of it was actually about how readers could relate to the themes and plot. I thought it'd be interesting to write about the other side of this genre because it can sometimes be over looked. The themes of the novel are; romance, relationships, friendships, sacrifice, good vs evil, war, mythology and supernatural. I'm going to just look at the romance because otherwise we could be here forever! So, of course readers can connect with romance. There'll prop ally only be a handful of people reading this books who've not experienced it all, but properly have done on some level, but everyone should be aware of the basics of it. Readers can understand the struggle to find love and also the rejection feelings of not finding it. Aeron has given up completely on it, yeah he's had girlfriends but things haven't worked out and he'd rather just be with his friends not have to face all those relationship issues. Something everyone can relate to there. Olivia on the other hand has only been able to witness love and now she's fallen is very interested to experience it. The start of their relationship isn't filled with going on dates and getting to know each other. It seems that none of the other relationships have this start to them either. I can understand why Showalter did this though. For the cogs to work in the plot, the lovers must have instant attraction and feelings for each other. So, the building blocks of their relationship, comes from some small talk and some sex. But imagine if the Lords did take their girlfriends on dates.....wonder what that would be like.....Trying to avoid the normality of dates here!

Readers can relate to this because the lovers have that whole does s/he actually like me? etc stuff and everyone has experience of that. Also something else I forgot to say before and I noticed in my BDB review too, I forgot the sex. Granted, I still have Fifty Shades of Grey lingering in my head...God is that ever going to leave? I think my soul is tinted now... and that's why I've been half avoiding/forgetting to write about that. Let's just say that the sex scenes are much better and yeah they might take place between supernatural beings, but they do it a hell of a lot better and feels a lot more realistic too! Maybe it works because its not porn? Anyways, the readers can also relate to that. Now it was actually the part about sacrificing (I don't mean killing something to a God here! I mean giving something up for someone else.) that got me wanting to write all of this, because it plays a key part in the novel and in a way it plays key parts in all relationships. Both Aeron and Olivia want to sacrifice things to allow the other one to be happy even if this means that their relationship ends and they never see each other again. It really does seem throughout the book that this is what they both want. But then we learn that Aeron is like that anyways and always puts his friends before himself and he's very happy to sacrifice things for them. Olivia only ever witnessing from Heaven, knows this and that's part of the reason why she fell in love with him and we see her given up things to allow Aeron to carry on living and be happy. In relation to real relationships, sometimes this sacrificing of things can be forgotten or left out. Other times, it becomes so strong it can break a relationship or else make it last longer. I guess we do this in friendships too sometimes.

In my new relationship, I've not had to sacrifice anything as of yet, but in my last I had to sacrifice a part of myself. Sometimes reading romance novels and deep thinking can make these thoughts appear. But yeah, I just wanted to bring that up and show that it does cover all aspects of relationships and there is some depth to the novels. Now, there are nine books in the series and then some more that link in to it which are about other characters. Dark Beginnings is like this and contains three short stories about the begins of relationships of characters which are already set up in the series. You don't need to really read these though to understand the series as a whole...reading them in the right order helps that!

So do Aeron and Olivia get together at the end? Well...you'll just have to read and find out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Black Dagger Brotherhood- Lover Reborn Review: 'Can his heart let go?'

I waited ages for this book to come out and then another age to actually read it! It's the 10th book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood (BDB) series by J R Ward. At the time I also believed it to be the last one, but then I found out at the end and also on line that there'll shall be another one! I'll admit though that the size of the novel and the 572 pages did seem a bit daunting at first. However, I then became lost in Ward's Caldwell, NY with her vampire warriors and I forgot all about it.

The first book in the series is Dark Lover and this sets out the main plot in all the other books. There is a vampire member (or soon to be) of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Which is an elite band of warriors who serve the vampire king and fight to defend vampire civilians against their enemies the Lessers. The vampire meets his true love and that's either another vampire, or a half vampire or a human. They'll try to get together but things/others get in the way or/and they start believing that the other one doesn't actual want them. Often there's some kind of falling out and then a resolving at the end where they do get together. There are also a number of subplots such as the war with the Lessers, the war with another band of warriors, random events that happen to members of the BDB. So it falls very nicely into the supernatural romance genre.

All the books have a third person narrative and can be split into two different points of view (POV); that of the BDB members and that of the Lessers/rouge vampires. The main narrative comes from the points of view of the hero and heroine. The sub narratives switch often. The first sub followers individual members of the BDB and creates something of a snap shot of what's happening in their lives as a back drop to the main plot. The second sub is individual members of their enemies and gives a good look into plans/happenings within this area. In writing from so many characters' view points readers will worry that they'll become lost and forget who's who, but Ward has actually pulled it off very nicely. She's done this in a number of ways; firstly by giving each vampire his own book. Which means that we get the full story of each vampire in depth without having to get him mixed up with anyone else. Though the vampires basically go through the same romantic events, Ward has made them so different from each other that they all stand out. After I read the first three I was able to recognise each vampire by only a few words.

Secondly, Ward uses the second sub narrtive of the enemies to balance the novel out. Yes, it can get a bit triedsome having to read what a lesser character is secretly ploting when all you want to do is see if the lovers are going to make up. However, its nice to be taken out of that story sometimes and allowed to see what else is happening in the world. Thirdly, somehow the subplots and different POV don't distract from the actual action. The narrative is written in such a style that the main plot doesn't become drowned out by subplots and readers aren't easily lost amongst plots and characters.

With this being the tenth book I'm finding it hard to talk about it individually, but I'll properly go into more depth about it later. It's easy to talk about the books as a whole series because they have so much in common and follow a linear larger plot. I really love this series and yes it does have something to with the whole vampire thing and the fact that it's horror/supernatural/romance genre. But it's also because of how Ward writes. Her use of narrative language, description and dialogue appeals to me greatly. But before I launch into that, let's look at Ward's vampires!

These vampires stand out because they are not your stereotypical vamps, though they do have some connects to typical vamps. Firstly, these vamps like to live in family groups and they can have children, though at a massive threat to the lives of the females and the young. Secondly, they can't go out in the sunlight and I can't actually remember if the reasoning behind this is stated (I read the first book three years ago and have read so much since then!) They are fine with religious symbols, garlic and stakes. They don't sleep in coffins and they can't turn into animals. They can only feed on a vampire who's the opposite sex to them. The blood gives them nutrition, strength and allow them to heal faster. They can also eat and drink real food though. They have supernatural healing abilities which means that they can come back from near death injuries. They can also create a mist in which to hide from enemies, hide their homes or hide fighting scenes from the public. They also embrace technology; they have phones and computers, defensive tech, TVs, music, a range of cars and the latest med tech. They have a large range of weapon choice, but they all use guns and daggers.  They also have their own language with the common words often appearing in the novels. Ward has a glossary at the back/front of the books which appears to get longer every time! But also you get use to these words and have to look up the translations less. They mate for life and have marriages, though a female can sometimes take on two males if she wants, but males get very over-protective of their females! They also have a Goddess who they pray too. The BDB vamps are warriors and take the description as such. They are often described as being very tall, muscular guys, seeming to fit the Greek warrior image more than that of stereotypical vamps. The other vampires do take on a more typical vamp image though.

 The characters in the novels are all well written. My favourite happens to be Rhage the star of the second book which I read first and so got me into the BDB. Ward brings each character to life through their background stories- which can often be very sad-their descriptions and dialogue. All the main characters have a lot of depth to them and the reader gets to see them develop throughout their individual books. Afterwards or before their books they take something of a background check and though some things are touched upon the main develop is left in their own stories. This works well because you get interested in each character, you want to find out more about them and how their current behaviour has come about. Plus they don’t just disappear once their stories have been told.  
 
I really like the heroines. All the women in these novels are strong, independent and capable of controlling their males. They have interesting back stories too and seem very realistic. Ward has also made such that they are matched up to their perfect lovers. And this comes across well as the characters easily compliment and complete each other. The development of the heroines mostly centres on their discovering and coming to understand love. Whilst the males often have to overcome their past or issues they currently have.

The other characters in the novels and yeah there’s a lot of them all feel realistic and well developed even if they are only background characters like the servants. This just brings the story more to life though and gives it added depth. It does work having characters like this because the reader is aware of them all the time without really knowing it. Plus also we don’t have to question what a character is doing there because we understand it from the narrative.      

 Ward uses a language relating to the New York setting of the novels. At times this slips into something of gangster style. Which I’ve to admit I’m not so keen on as I don’t think it adds anything to the novels. Swear words are common place and the vocabulary is adult, though it is a simple language that she uses throughout. The pace and flow of the language is great and it allows fast reading whilst soaking everything up. There’s no sudden jumping to different scenes as everything just flows nicely on. The dialogue she gives her characters is also very good. It feels real and you can image the characters actually saying those words. Ward gets a lot of emotions across in her dialogue, whilst still staying to the point. Some of the characters have accents, which does work fine because it’s only a handful of them and not everyone single one!      

So finally, Lover Reborn is the story of Tohrment and No’One. Tohr’s character has long been established and readers have followed his recent tragic events. Now though he’s about to find love again with the most unlikeliest vampire! However, it does turn out that they are well suited for each other and they are able to rediscover love once more. Once they’ve gone through all the trials though! The subplot to this is one that started in the previous book that of the other band of warrior vampires. These guys are old fashioned, shunning technology and preferring to have very basic lives. They want to take over the BDB and plan to use the recent Lesser attacks to swing the civilian vampires into choosing them. The other subplot is that of an angel- Lassiter- trying to get back into Heaven by getting Tohr and No’One together. This novel’s main theme is all about letting go of the dead and learning to live and love again. I’m pleased to say like the other books it does have a happy ending!

Overall, I love this series and I’m so happy that there’s another book coming out! The novels are so well written, the characters good and entertaining, the plots work well and also sometimes they can keep you wondering about how it’s going to work out happy in the end, which is what I like. They work well as modern vampires too and Ward has made them unique enough. The language and dialogue is great and flows nicely. Ward has written some other singular books and also another series which is about angels. I’ve those books, but haven’t read them yet.

Next time I’m going to look at another series; The Lords Of The Underworld by Gena Showalter.        

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