It would be my birthday in thirteen days. I would turn eighteen a hostage.
One night in London, Violet witnesses a blood bath in Trafalgar Square. Unable to flee the scene fast enough, the murderers take her with them to their home in Varnley. Discovering she is the daughter of the Minister of Defence, her captors realise they cannot harm her without severe implications. But they are more than human, their desires driven by their blood lust. Yes, Violet has been taken hostage by vampires and sheβs about to be plunged into the middle of a political war between them and humanity.
Abigail Biggs started writing The Dark Heroine when she was just 15 and it was originally published as an online serial before being snapped up by HarperCollins to publish the novel in its entirity. I initially picked it up as I was rather intrigued to see what could be done by such a younger writer and I was pleasantly surprised. Despite its faults, I really rather enjoyed it and will be keeping an eye on her in the future.
As I was reading I assumed that it had been lifted straight from the serialised version without editing but the acknowledgements do, um, acknowledge that it was chopped down quite a bit by the editor. I think you can still see signs of its origins; the plot is a bit meandering and the prose gets stronger as the story goes on. The first few chapters really needed a re-write; they are rather weak and may put sample readers off buying it. Violetβs narrative voice is a little inconsistent but the dialogueβs full of personality. Indeed, her inner voice turns out to be a sign that the girl can write but in a way I canβt explain without a spoiler.
I screamed as blood and sinew was ripped from [his] carcass, monster after monster now throwing themselves at the ravaged corpse. His stomach was sliced open by a single nail, vampires lowering their heads to drink the blood from the organs torn out and treated as offal. I clamped my mouth shut, gagging uncontrollably.
Vegetarian Violet is under no illusion about what vampires are. She is horrified about what they do and she wants no part in their world. But she soon learns that itβs not as simple as humans good, vampires bad and that there are several shades of bad in between. Even as the story and relationships progress, she is repeatedly repulsed by some of her thoughts and the things she witnesses. Yet she learns to be pragmatic about such things.
Of course, there is a love interest, although Iβm not convinced by the coverβs declaration that itβs the sexiest romance Iβll read this year. There are a few bits of sexy and I was quite surprised at the honesty of the sex scene. Apart from βhitched breathingβ (can we please ban that phrase?) it wasnβt over romanticised or made into something magical. At one point we meet Violetβs ex-boyfriend and instantly you realise why she would fall for a sophisticated if dangerous vampire compared to him. Though Violet doesnβt instantly swoon at anyoneβs feet, she is quite sassy and gives the vampires a lot of trouble before she would even consider being friends.
Itβs not the best written book in the world but it was compelling reading. Itβs the sort of book that, once you get into the story and stop analysing the prose, itβs hard to put down but it wasnβt one I craved to return to when I had to go and do other things. I am certainly looking forward to seeing what she does next. The ebook is available now (at the bargain price of Β£1.99) or you can wait until 25th October for the paperback.
Goodreads | Amazon | Waterstones
Related posts
7 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Subscribe via Email
Recent Posts
Review: The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne βββββ Thanks so much @Gambit589 @orbitbooks for the review copy! https://t.co/q7COQ9C8YI
FollowA pile of recent #bookpost ! Thanks @orbitbooks for Dead Water and Notorious Sorcerer. π https://t.co/QfWOHrdybv
Follow
Strangely enough, I liked Kaspar. He is a jerk, but an honest one. I also love the snarkiness (is that even a word?) of both him and Violet, and the whole pretentiousness of vampire balls. Somehow reminded me of Vampire Academy much more than Twilight.
I did too but I do like that sort of character in fantasy. I got really annoyed with all thf smirking. I don't know if she understood that a smirk is generally not a nice smile because it's all Kaspar seemed to do!
I really want to read this. I'm a bit amazed that she was writing it at 15. Hopefully a copy will turn up for me soon π
The book sounds good. I'll be checking it out. π
I can only imagine her future writing getting even better, if she wrote this at fifteen! Not quite the book I'd enjoy though (even though I'm a fellow vegetarian!), and er, hitched breathing doesn't sound very sexy π
Biggs sounds like she has quite a bit of potential, although, I'm sort of surprised there wasn't greater effort in polishing the final published version. It would be really hard for me to get past all that. Overall though, it sounds really entertaining! This might be one of those books I pick up when there's nothing else on my to-reads list.
I get the feeling it wasa bit of a rush. Apparently the end hadsn't been published yet so they must have been eager to get it to the existing fanbase before they lost interest. Am looking forward to seeing how she improves in the next one.