Title: By virtue fall (Shadowdance #1)
Author: Mark Wooden (Etats-Unis)
Publication date: December 20th 2013
Publisher: Writer
Geek Press
Number of pages: 168
(epub format)
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During the Terror of
the French Revolution, the Daughters of Lilith, a cult of female vampire
assassins, make noblewoman Adriana Dupré one of them. They later manipulate her
into killing her ancestors and set her younger sister Dominique, now also a
vampire, against her. Adriana swore revenge.
The centuries passed,
taking Adriana’s bloody vengeance into the modern era. She encounters Dwyer
Strathan, a dark sorcerer who poses as a Hollywood bad boy. He offers her a
deal: if she retrieves the three mystical relics called the Vyntari shards for
him, he will give her the information she needs to destroy the Daughters and
redeem her sister.
The deal sends
Adriana from the soulless glamor of Los Angeles to the seedy underworld and
haunted forests of Berlin. She combats werewolves, a golem and the Knights of
Vyntari, warrior sorcerers charged with the protection of the shards.
The knights challenge
Adriana to consider what good has come from her violent path of vengeance.
Might there be another way towards salvation? And is the redemption of her
sister worth giving Strathan the power of the shards – the power to enslave the
world?
I have mixed feelings about this one. Really, I
thought I would like it, because the beginning was more than enjoyable. But
around half of the book, it started going round in circles and getting more and
more boring, so
much than 20% from the end I decided it was enough and skipped pages only to
read the final lines, to know how all this ended.
I won’t write a
summary myself because the one on the back cover is explicit enough. Actually,
it even is a bit spoilery because it pretty much sums up the whole book. But for once I was glad the blurb gave out so
much, because otherwise I would have quickly lost track of the storyline.
Although action packed, the beginning is quite slow plotwise so it was a
good thing I knew beforehand where the author wanted his story to lead, so that
I didn’t feel lost.
The beginning was
very interesting though! As I said before, I very much enjoyed the first half of
the story. The mythology developed in
this series is very interesting and diversified; you will find not only
vampires but also sorcerers, werewolves, golems, etc. I also really liked the setting: it takes place in various places in
the world, including France, Los Angeles, Berlin and others I forgot, but I
found it really great that the story wasn’t set only in the US (not that I have
anything against the US, don’t get me wrong, but almost all urban fantasy
novels take place there). Also, the
author mixes past and present very well, including supernatural bits in
real historical events like the French Revolution or the Third Reich in
Germany. It was very well done and I enjoyed that a lot.
The first half of the
book is also where we get introduced to Adriana,
the heroine, a ruthless vampire hungry
for bloody vengeance. We get to know how she changes from the nice aristocratic
girl with a love for music to this heartless creature. I didn’t like
Adriana the vampire that much but I did really enjoy the flashbacks from her
past.
So, what happened in
the second half to make the story go so down? Well, around 40% Adriana finally
makes this deal mentioned in the blurb and I thought: “awesome, now the real
story is going to start!” But… no, it didn’t. Almost all this second half was about fighting, fighting, fighting and…
did I mention fighting? Really, action is nice but not when it takes
everything over plot development.
Also, I didn’t find many of the things that
were mentioned in the blurb: the thing with Adriana’s sister seemed very important, while in the
book the sister is barely mentioned. And Adriana’s meeting with the Knights of
Vyntari only happens at the very end (when I had already started skipping
pages). Really, what I’ll remember of
the second half of this book is that Adriana fights all the time, and doesn’t
mind injuring and killing people, even innocent people. That’s all.
So, in the end, I have to say I am very much
disappointed with this one. The beginning was promising, but unfortunately the
good first half doesn’t make up for the boring second half. This is where the
plot should have developed and become even more interesting, but instead action
took it all. I have
an ARC of book two, but honestly, I don’t know if I will read it, given that I
struggled so much to finish book one.
I recommend this book to you if: You like action (really really like
it), and want to read a story with ruthless vampires.
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