GraveTells review: a hip paranormal romance in a much beloved series
TLDR recap: Utana, father of the vampire race, and an immortal who has been trapped inside the ashes of his body for thousands of years, is on a crusade to purge his sin against the gods by obliterating the origination of that sin... his vampire children, all of them. Brigit Poe, one of the prophecied Twins, the "evil" twin who has been trained to fight and kill with her laser-eyebeams-o-death, has been given a terrible task: kill Utana before he kills all of them. This second offering in the Children of Twilight series by Maggie Shayne starts off slow, but really takes off about halfway through, before barrelling non-stop toward a heart-breaking, explosive conclusion. A GraveTells recommended read! Thoughts: Brigit is modern, spunky, irreverent, tender, and intelligent, and she doesn't need a man to save her... usually. Utana is old-fashioned (duh, thousands of years old!), has been a king, a priest, and (considered to some) a god, can shoot crazy lasers of destruction from his own eyes, and is working some major mojo in that big sculpted (and apparently revivable) body of his. Needless to say, he doesn't think he needs a woman to save him either, but he hasn't met Brigit yet. Over the last few years, Harlequin has really been busting out of its staid, rusty old ravishing-innocents-and-bodice-rippers stereotype, and Twilight Fulfilled is an engaging contemporary, hip paranormal romance in a much beloved series. This story is told in third-person, but the characterization of the voices is so well done, it reads like first-person. It starts off as a composite cast story, with several storylines weaving in and out; that's probably what made the first half of the book feel slow for me, and the main reason for the 4.0 rating (would have otherwise been higher). We should take into account that I read Twilight Fulfilled without first reading Twilight Prophecy (the first book in the Children of Twilight series) or any of the numerous Wings in the Night books, so my observations are from the point of a true newbie to this universe. That will be helpful for readers who, like me, are starting fresh with this one, and probably annoying to readers who are long-time fans of Maggie Shayne's vampires. Something else that was both a positive and a negative for me was Utana's obvious initial trouble with the English language. His stumbling pronunciations and word misuse made for a few fun comedic moments (which, IMO, could have been played on a little more heavily), but also made it difficult for me to identify with him as a character. Ms. Shayne does a great job, though, of progressing his language skills at a believable pace; he may be highly intelligent, but he's no virtuoso and I like that - it makes him more real and he needs it. I mean, seriously, this dude is the original Noah, the father of the vampire race, an ancient Sumerian king and priest, and can wipe out entire blocks with his mega Cyclops gaze... he definitely isn't your average easily-relatable hero-next-door type! Continued... (truncated for length) Original full available on GraveTells: search for "Twilight Fulfilled" *ARC provided by Netgalley. No compensation was received for this review and all opinions expressed are the honest opinion of the reviewer, not influenced by outside factors.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback.
Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.