Review: A Shade of Vampire (A Shade of Vampire #1) by Bella Forrest

Title: A Shade of Vampire (A Shade of Vampire #1)
Author: Bella Forrest
Published: November 14th 2012
Published: Bella Forrest
My rating: 3 stars

On the evening of Sofia Claremont's seventeenth birthday, she is sucked into a nightmare from which she cannot wake.

A quiet evening walk along a beach brings her face to face with a dangerous pale creature that craves much more than her blood.

She is kidnapped to an island where the sun is eternally forbidden to shine. An island uncharted by any map and ruled by the most powerful vampire coven on the planet. She wakes here as a slave, a captive in chains.

Sofia's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn when she is the one selected out of hundreds of girls to join the harem of Derek Novak, the dark royal Prince.

Despite his addiction to power and obsessive thirst for her blood, Sofia soon realizes that the safest place on the island is within his quarters, and she must do all within her power to win him over if she is to survive even one more night.

Will she succeed? ...or is she destined to the same fate that all other girls have met at the hands of the Novaks?

Although Vampire-themed books aren't really my thing, from time to time I find myself getting really interested in picking one. I first saw A Shade of Vampire in a promo post from a blog and got interested with its blurb right away. It sounds really intriguing. So when I received an email from the author if I could review this book I didn't hesitate. 

A Shade of Vampire has a very promising plot. It was what really draws me in to it. The world the author created was very intriguing and the positions and situations the characters were put through had made it look even more thrilling to read. However, I'm afraid to say that it lacks some elements that might have made the delivering of the story much more compelling thus making me a quite disappointed with it.

I'm not saying that it was an awful read. I have enjoyed some parts of it and some I find really exciting and interesting. The main problem I had was that I felt emotionally detached to the story. I wanted to be completely connected to it but that's just hard to do if the things are happening too fast. There weren't enough build-up (especially on the romance) to convince me that everything is happening naturally or genuinely. It's only the surface emotion that I can see and every explanations and actions seem too brief.

And one more thing, I was expecting some work and efforts on part of Sofia here in winning Derek over as indicated on the blurb (that was what I was really looking forward, how Sofia would to it and how it would turn into something more) however it has become quite apparent early on the book that there won't be that much action regarding that part since Derek had an insta-attraction to her. 

Nonetheless, there were parts that manage to make still want to continue the book. I was still curious on what Sofia's faith would be. And some of the ideas presented on this book is admittedly very interesting to explore. There were sweet moments too that I do find genuine (like the Sun Room! I really like that). The last part had me really curious on what's gonna happen next that despite the flaws I mentioned made me decide to still read the next book. 

If you're looking for a light and descent paranormal read which isn't really that complicated but still offers some pretty cool world-building and likable characters, I think you might want to check this out.

Thank you Bella Forest for providing me a copy of this book.