Saturday, March 29, 2014

Vampires Among Us by Alice Brown

The story begins right off with the main female character, Erica, trying to get home from shopping before her husband gets home. By the end of the first page, Shawn Harper is giving his wife a brutal beating. What makes the abuse even worse is his strength is magnified by also being a vampire. His abuse doesn't stop there as Erica is his source of blood. Her arms are badly scarred from his years of forcing her to provide for him.

Erica is a typical abused woman who has reached the point where she knows she needs to get out before her husband kills her. She wants to leave, yet doesn't because for a couple of good reasons. Who would believe she's married to a vampire? Not knowing there are good vampires out there, She fears for the safety of everyone involved in her escape once Shawn learns she has left. Erica believes that Shawn was drawn to her because he knew she grew up in the state's foster care system. She had no family. Therefore, there was no one to care what happened to her.

Kevin is a classmate who has become a good friend, offers to help her if and when she decides she's ready to leave her husband. Unknown to her, is that he's also a vampire. From here the story is fairly predictable, the differences between this and similar stories are in the details. This is the first time I've read one in the abused wife genre where the husband is a vampire.

I wasn't riveted to this story. I can't say I read it through unable to set the book down and do something else. The conversations are somewhat stilted in a mix of formal and informal dialog. There is a lack of consistency in the use of contractions when characters are speaking. This makes for a somewhat less than easy read. My mind kept wanting to correct this problem which interfered with having a chance to enjoy the story. There are some issues with grammar, mainly in the tense of the words used. While there are no egregious errors, I do feel this book would benefit from additional beta reading and/or editing. I was gifted a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review. 3 stars

This book is available on Amazon.

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