I had read that Skyler White uses a very rich language that some people love and some hate. In general I love poetic language and so I thought this book could be the one for me.
Not sure now. The protagonist, Olivia, is a fallen angel/vampire. She speaks in the first person, present tense (not as jarring as I thought it would be), and indeed uses very poetic language. Unfortunately, it is also very repetitive. But that was not the main problem.
Olivia is not a strong character. She goes with the flow. She wants a man to love her knowing what she is (heh, original much?), but doesn’t even let the first man we meet in the story take a breath before she tells him she is a vampire and damned and can’t have sex.
And then she is disappointed that he thinks she’s mad.
Okay. Then she is off to Ireland because she gives up altogether in finding someone to accept her – she goes to a refuge for vampires and Reborn and other tormented souls, and there she obviously hopes to die (she says it’s to be with people who understand her, but getting to know her “sisters” it’s obvious she knows that’s a fat chance).
The second character is Dominic whose scenes are in third person past tense (which works so much better). He is much more likable than Olivia, and has an internal conflict (he believes vampires and his own past remembered lives are a product of mental illness and that can be cured. Now this is a protagonist!) But somehow he ends up in the same place as Olivia in Ireland, and…
Drums roll.
Olivia and Dominic meet.
Okay, I hadn’t realized it was really, REALLY a romance more than anything else.
All internal conflict fades within pages. Dominic sees Olivia without a reflection in the mirrors in an underground room, and starts to believe her. And from the moment he sees her he’s in love with her and wants to sleep with her.
Simple.
Olivia too, btw. Her descriptions of Dominic border on the ridiculous – he’s strong, warrior-like, strong, warrior-like, handsome, so handsome, etc. She wants him. Fair enough.
Enter a twist with pills Dominic is taking and Olivia has one too – so are there really vampires and angels and past lives or not? It seems not – and that sadly makes things worse because it’s like Alice in Wonderland waking up to find it was all a dream. But: at the same time they both seem to remember everything.
In short, the end is confusing and unsatisfying.
To me, that is.
The language was not the problem. The story (or lack thereof) is.
My favorite character was the snake in an underground garden.
And that tells you a lot about a book.

By the way, don’t miss tomorrow KRISTA’S GUEST POST RIGHT HERE!!! 🙂