Be Still my Vampire Heart
Grade : D+

This is the third book in the Love at Stake series. Although I haven’t read the first two, this one is not particularly hard to follow. That's about the heartiest recommendation I can offerly, sadly, even though I’m a fan of vampire romance.

In Sparks’s creation, there are two factions of vampires at war. The first drink a combination of alcohol and synthetic blood and although they aren’t generally friendly with humans, they aren’t out killing them either. The other faction (the Malcontents) use humans indiscriminately and create more vampires to help them win the war. Emma Wallace’s parents were killed by the latter. Emma is psychic and saw their horrible deaths. On the day her parents died she joined forces with an agency whose sole purpose is to slay vampires. They have no idea how outclassed they really are.

Angus MacKay, a seasoned vampire and Scots warrior, runs into Emma on one of her solitary midnight hunts in Central Park. With his assistance, she dispatches the vampires and then trades sexual innuendos before Angus disappears. When she realizes he is most likely a vampire, she is understandably afraid. He does nothing more than email her, however, and now she doesn’t know what to think. He makes more appearances, all the while not offering up any threat, and attempting to defuse her dangerous nightly forays.

Emma definitely veers into TSTL territory. The extremely patient Angus demonstrates over and over that she’s just been lucky in fighting brand new vampires, not seasoned fighters. She, of course, goes on her merry way ignoring any evidence that she might not be as tough as she believes, and ends up dragging Angus and herself into real danger.

Although I enjoyed Angus more than Emma, his behavior toward the end when Emma finally got a clue seemed ridiculous and out of sync with his character. Emma’s “gang” was problematic as well. Their so called “leader,” Sean, is the father of one of the characters from the previous books, Shanna. His character’s prejudice mixed with Emma’s attitude was just more than I could handle.

Then to top things off, the Malcontents are portrayed as a bunch of squabbling idiots, and certainly not like a faction who is supposedly a serious threat. This book is connected to Vamps and the City and How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire and characters from those books make an appearance here. After finishing this one I certainly didn’t feel compelled to seek out the others.

By the time I finally closed this one, I was happy just to leave Emma’s antics and these vampires far behind. Perhaps fans of this series will find more to enjoy here than the very, very little I did, but with so many better vampire romances out there, why bother?

Reviewed by Liz Zink
Grade : D+
Book Type: Vampire Romance

Sensuality: Warm

Review Date : April 6, 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Liz Zink

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x