I tried. I tried! I really, really tried, you guys! It's been five years since the last Twilight movie came out, all those rumors about a TV series turned out to be crap, it's time to give vampires a second chance. And I want to give them a second chance! I liked vampires when I was a kid. There's so much potential with them. They're classic creatures of darkness capable of extraordinary things. But...*sigh* it seems that we're still not done ripping off that ridiculous franchise and coming up with ridiculousness like this thing!
Lysandra Romanova-Dracula is revered among her family as The Chosen One, who will defeat their great enemies, the shifters (werewolves), once and for all. After years of learning how to hunt wolves in Moscow, she's ready to return home to Romania and earn her place amongst her brutal father's court and marry her betrothed. But when a pack of wolves attacks her home and she finds an injured shifter among the rubble, she... takes him in, hides him, and nurses him back to health....okay. As she tries to hide the wolf from the vicious vampires that live in the castle, Lysandra and the wolf, Lisar, form a bond that could reshape the destinies of the two races forever....or something.
Yes, my friends, this story deeply, deeply suffers from all the tropes of the paranormal romance genre. Or, as I like to call it, the-same-piece-of-crap-story-over-and-over genre. Everything in this book, everything, is predictable, lazy, and asinine to the tenth degree! It's like the author didn't even try with this book! Every tried line, every exhausted self-insert pandering trick, every done-to-death cliche you can think of is in here. We have the forced love, the brooding third wheel (but not evil, no, because that might hinder the shipping war), the ridiculously over-the-top villains, it's all here.
We are told, over and friggin' over again, that this broad Lysandra can take care of herself. That she's been training for years to get ready for this war and she even wins a fight right in front of everyone's eyes. Yet, whenever there's fighting going on, the hot men all have to protect her and shove her in her room until the danger is past. And helping this werewolf (I don't give a crap what they call them), even when she's supposedly trained for years to fight these things and even has some force-fed backstory about wolves killing her mother (which I don't buy for a second), she does because "I don't know why." Yeah! Every time she questions why she' doing contrived, stupid things her response is "I don't know why." I'll tell you why. BECAUSE THE FRIGGING SCRIPT SAID SO! There's no other reason! She just does whatever the script tells her to do, taking NO action herself, and spews exposition that could get her whole family killed because, again, "I don't know why." There's a direct quote in here that says, "I told him everything he needed to know and practically fed him specific instructions on how to end the vampires for good." She openly admits it! Having a character never take action, make ridiculously stupid decisions, and just meander through the plot of their own story doesn't make them interesting or likable. It makes them look like a FRIGGING MORON! How are we supposed to take such a brainless bimbo seriously? WE CAN'T!
The borrowed details and terrible writing in this thing stick out like a sore thumb. From the fact that Lisar, our hunky werewolf character, doesn't like shirts (wonder where that little tidbit came from) to a "Paint me like one of your French girls, Jack" scene (okay, that wasn't a direct quote this time but if they'd thought of it they'd have thrown it in and you know it!) everything is tired and forced. Everything in this book is borrowed or forced and I just hate it all! Her father, Csar Dragomir, is your typical, cartoony bad guy who tortures and hits his daughter in the face because "pride" and is just a massive douche for absolutely no reason. We get these ugly vampires and you know they're evil because they're ugly and they frigging admit it, who do absolutely nothing for the story except give Lysandra and excuse to be saved yet again. And, yes, I've admitted that I'm not the biggest romance fan but even a genuine romance fan would gag at some of these "love" scenes. Frolicking in the gardens, cuddling up and watching TV, using words like "spellbinding" and "passionate love affair rivaling the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet", to the addition of this books version of imprinting just adds to the painfully cliche tone of this thing.
Funny enough, one of my biggest gripes in this book doesn't even have to do with the special-kind-of-stupid heroine or the cringe-worthy attempts at "romance". Lysandra lives in this huge castle lavishly decorated with expensive, gothic attire. She has designer clothes, a bathroom with a waterfall shower and a Jacuzzi tub, a fully stocked armory and gym, a gorgeous ballroom, custom made cars worth millions of dollars and just about everything else you can think of. Now, here's my question: where the heck did all this money come from? The answer....there is no answer. They're just rich for no reason. They're descended from Romanian and Russian royalty, sure, but both those lines went extinct and have no money or privileges left to their names! As far as the world in which they live knows they have no right to anything! I can march up to a bank and claim to be the long lost descendent of some ancient royal line, heck I could even have proof of it, and y'know what I'd get? A PAT ON THE BACK AND SHOWN TO THE DOOR, THAT'S WHAT! These vampires have no jobs, do nothing except sit around and talk about their stupid war with werewolves that makes no sense, and do NOTHING that would earn them the rights to live in the lap of luxury. This is just another example of pandering to the readers so they can think, "wouldn't it be nice to be a modern day princess living in my dream castle with everything I could ever want and hunky boy toys vying for my affection?" If I didn't already think that this book was absolute garbage, this tidbit tips the scales.
Final Verdict
Do you even have to ask? This book is HORRENDOUS! It's pandering, brainless tripe and, for the first time in a year, we have found our second ever entry into the FURNACE OF EVERLASTING TORMENT! Vampires deserve better than this. Literature deserves better than this. YOU deserve better than this. Spare yourself the pain.
Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below and share your thoughts. Have a book you'd like me to read or would like to make a recommendation? Contact me on goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/65448711-michelle-beer
Next Time: All fun and games until someone gets fatally poisoned or thrown to their deaths....
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