Book Review – Black Sunshine: A Dark Vampire Romance (Dark Eyes Book 1) By Karina Halle

This was my first Karina Halle book and I stumbled on it looking for a new vampire book for my healthy vampire obsession. 🙂 This was set in an urban fantasy world in Berkely, California. Our main character, Lenore, is a second year UC Berkeley student in Egyptian history. I was intrigued from the first page and read this in one sitting. Halle’s characters were captivating and her world beautiful and addicting. I gave this a 4/5 rating. You should read this too.

**Spolier Alert**

As a child, Lenore’s parents were murdered by rogue hunters, tracing her mother. The couple that killed them, took her in and raised her. She doesn’t find out any of this until right at her 21st birthday after she is kidnapped by a house of vapires. She doesn’t even know she is half witch, half vampire as her parents never told her.

The alpha of the house, and the man that sets her skin on fire, Absolon Stavig, helps push her through her vampire change so she doesn’t hurt anyone. As she grows into her vampire side, her stand in parents confess they kept her hidden from the vampire and witch world, because they would have killed Lenore for what she is, but they do have a true love for each other despite the circumstances.

Though as Absolon had guessed, once Lenore’s change is complete, the rest of their world knows who and wha she is. Both sides come forward to try to kill or kidnap her for their vampire king in Norway. This is a wonderful tale with death and heartache in spades but their is also love and forgiveness.

Book Review – Taken (The Harvest Series 1) – M.A. Church

This was my first M.A. Church book. This is the first of the series set in a Sci Fi world and Earth. I did have issues with the plot and main character for this book, which I will explain below. I had to give this a 2/5 for those reasons even though it did appear they put effort into the more technical sides of space and planets. I just can’t recommend this one to anyone.

**Spoiler Alert**

We meet our main character, Dale, in the beginning as he is being abducted from his home for a program called: The Harvest. It is a bond between the Alien race’s people and Earth’s governments, to collect mates from the population. It’s meant to help the alien’s dying race become viable again. Dale becomes the “chosen mate” of Captain Keyno Landium Shou of a Tah’Narian starship. Human’s are implanted with the Alien’s DNA, allowing them to bear their children.

After this, it’s expected that Dale will simply be OK with this, after being kidnapped from everything he loves on Earth. He won’t be allowed to return. To Dale’s credit, he does put up a ‘bit’ of a fight, as would be expected in this situation. I think I would find it impossible to feel anything but hate for the thing that did that to me, but Dale ad Kenyo end up in a relationship way too quickly, or at all. I just didn’t like this aspect of the plot. Kidnappees expected to be mates of their kidnappers. Too stockholmy for me.

If you can get past the plot points of the kidnap situation, you may enjoy this. Good luck.