Starlight Saturday

Weekly Book Review

Vampire Island debuted this week and I had the opportunity to read an advance copy provided by the author, Sandra Cox. Sandra's also our featured author this week in our YA Room.

When I started this book, I really wasn't in the mood for another vampire series and certainly not another human-in-love-with vampire or vampire-sex story, so I was truly surprised at my reaction to this book.

I was hooked right from the beginning and Cox continued to reel me in as she ensconced me into Zoe's world. The imagery of this story was so powerful that I felt as though I was on this Bahamian island called Vampire Island. I saw the beauty, I saw what Zoe saw and experienced what she experienced and learned what she did as she discovered it.

There was enough mystery going on to keep me flipping pages. The story flowed, action moved the story from one scene to the next, imagery painted the setting, and complex character dynamics combined to create a beautiful exotic world of beauty and danger. It provided a terrific escape.

This story did something I never expected it would do - it filled the void left by the absence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While Zoe is a vampire slayer, this is a completely different world and life from what Buffy had and there's a completely new set of rules. These are rules I want to discover, and there are characters that I want to met.

While there are plenty of hotties for the YA crowd in this book, there is one particular hottie that will appeal to those of us in the older crowd - Uncle Julian Kilmer. From the moment you learn about him he is shrouded in mystery, and even once you learn his secrets, you find that he has more. He's strong, muscular and sexy! Julian is the one character I would like to see have his own book, but one for the adult readers!

If I tell you any more about the story or any of the characters, I'll just give too much away, so before I do give anything away, I'll get right to the ratings. First I'll break the ratings up into basic elements of the story. These ratings are based on the amount of the element in the story. For example, I give this story 1 heart in the romance category. Not because the romance is bad, but because it is light on the romance element. The highest rating any one element can receive is a 5.

Mystery:

Romance:

Suspense:

Intrigue:

Action/Adventure:

Fantasy:

All of these elements combine together to create a great story for readers of all ages!

Overall rating: