EmAnne

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest is one of those books that may seem a little cheesy, yet still sucks you into the story. I would recommend this book for readers looking for a light, yet a bit more original vampire novel. Also, despite the book only consisting of 149 pages, I found that I felt little was rushed. This upon itself is a huge achievement.

The characters were very intruiguing. At first, I thought that Sofia would get on my nerves but was glad that I was proved wrong. She is smart, and not at all weak-willed. Derek, the vampire prince, took me a bit longer to warm up to. I mean, hello, he is a killer, which in my book is not sexy or admirable. However, I do believe that he will stop killing innocent humans. In the book he tries, which earned him some points. Another thing that kind of bothered me is that Derek is waaaaaay older than Sofia. Um, creepy? However, I know most people aren't as bothered by this as I am, Twilight being a prime example.

I loved how this book set up the vampire world, The Shade. It is very vivid, brutal, and admittedly quite frightening. Vampires are, mostly, lazy people paranormal beings who have human slaves to do all their dirty work. Also, there is no real sunlight in this vampiric shelter so, um, I think I would die living with them. Thankfully, Sofia does create a fake sun room. Nice job girl! A lot of other details impressed me. For example, there is also a group of hunters I am curious to find out more about. Bella Forrest definitely had clear facts inside her head about how her vampires worked so I feel there will be great sequels.

Right now, I have to say I didn't like, absolutely love the romance. However it was sweet and intruiguing. I loved seeing Derek grow kinder, and there wasn't too much insta-love... although it was a little too fast paced for my taste. Hopefully, Derek will stop all the violence coming from the vampires in later books. Right now, in my book, vampires are evil kidnappers and blood-suckers. Hopefully, they will see what monsters they have become and change. And, on a side note, I liked the ending. After the last chapter, I am growing increasingly interested in Derek's sister who has the power over prophecy. Derek's brother, however, is a complete jerk who, I'm sorry, deserves to rot.

Overall, this was an extremely enjoyable read! I loved the idea and execution of the Shade, and basically the whole book. However, I did have some minor issues with the story, but they didn't ruin the reading experience.