Vampire in Denial, by Dale Mayer
Vampire in Denial, by Dale Mayer
Book One – Blood Ties series
Reviewed by Lisa
Like being a sixteen-year-old vampire isn’t hard enough, Tessa’s throwback human genes make her an outcast among her relatives. But try as she might, she can’t get a handle on the vampire lifestyle and all the…blood.
Turning her back on the vamp world, she embraces the human teenage lifestyle—high school, peer pressure and finding a boyfriend. Jared manages to stir something in her blood. He’s smart and fun and oh, so cute. But Tessa’s dream of a having the perfect boyfriend turns into a nightmare when vampires attack the movie theatre and kidnaps her date.Once again, Tessa finds herself torn between the human world and the vampire one. Will blood own out? Can she make peace with who she is as well as what?
This book clocks in a 125 pages in PDF format, and I was really looking forward to the premise of this story. The main plot twist, while a bit of a déjà vu idea, had enough intrigue to be interesting. Vampire and humans are living side by side in a somewhat harmonious existence finding a way to all get along and respect each other. Or so it appears on the surface. Tessa, our main character, experiences a more sinister side to the vampire civilization while she’s on a group date with her human friends. The date has a tragic end with her boy crush being kidnapped by mysterious vampires. When Tessa takes this horrific event to her family for help, they don’t believe her.
When we meet Tessa, the main character, we’re introduced to a shy, awkward, teenage half-vampire girl that feels like the odd man out in her own family. Between Chapter One and Chapter Two, Tessa transforms into a sarcastic, fairly disrespectful, super vamp that refuses to listen to anyone if they don’t go along with what she wants to hear. She not only grows confidence, but apparently also grows a figure just by changing into some stiletto boots, a cleavage baring top and outrageous makeup. She can miraculously open doors that no one else can simply by kicking them really hard. She can track people by scent, see the energy lines of people, find openings to secret passage ways, and other fantastical things that other vampires can’t do, and that just a few, short pages ago she, herself couldn’t even do. She’s the youngest character in the book, the baby of her family, and yet she begins to boss the people around her into tracking down the kidnappers.
This is where I started to have some problems with the book. The total 180 degree change in Tessa’s demeanor was like a cold shower. Any sympathy that I felt for Tessa vanished in the face of her newfound attitude. I think that she could’ve discovered her place in the vampire world without the “withering looks” and constant snapping at everyone, including her parents and the elders of vampire society. It made her, at least in my opinion, more than a bit bratty and hard to like. I also found the strong sense of attachment she has for Jared to be unbelievable as they seem to have no connection prior to this group movie date. Wanting to save him from the vampires is admirable, but ditching her family to save a boy she hardly knows without a single worry about what she’s getting into seems strange and out of place, even when factoring in her total personality change.
There were also quite a few errors in the book, both in punctuation and grammar. For me, when a book is poorly edited and the errors are numerous – as in this case – it’s hard on the eyes and continually pulls me from the story. I understand that ebook formatting can be a finicky beast, but it’s always important to have a good proofreader and I felt this book missed that mark. There were also several strange descriptive phrases and shifts between slang, more formal vocabulary, and odd words that prevented me from getting lost in the story.
As I stated earlier, the plot idea was intriguing, and if given the chance for deeper development instead of rushing into it so quickly – I think there is really something there. I realize that this book is only the first in a series, so perhaps the author was intentionally trying to just whet our appetite by just hitting the tip of the iceburg, but I feel it glossed over a lot information that was needed. I think there is a lot of potential for this series if the author slows the storytelling down a bit, and provides better explanations for the multiple twists and turns in the plot. Most importantly, find a good editor or proofreader for the next book in the series. It will help immensely.
Overall, I would give Vampire in Denial 2 out of 5 fangs. Slower storytelling will help draw the readers in more fully, and a few simple tweaks in Tessa will make her much more likeable. I like my female characters to have a backbone, and a spicy attitude, but unforunately, this was just a bit over the top for me, especially when factoring in Tessa’s age.
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