1 post tagged “nightwalker”
to be honest, i'm not even really completely sure why i decided to start reading this book. aside from hearty blurbs from kim harrison and vicki pettersson, there was no other real reason, i guess; the plot sounded somewhat cliched and cheesy, and i didn't think i was up to more paranormal pretension or the disguise of bad writing behind drama. that, fortunately, was not the case with this book, and it gives me a little bit of delight to admit that i can still find new series to enjoy aside from those few authors i religiously follow.
the way it starts is quite weird enough, because it leaves you not quite knowing what to expect. the heroine seems like the typical villain in most of the other stuff in the genre, so there's a bit of confusion for a while over how this is going to work out. as it progresses, however, the picture is painted increasingly more thoroughly, and i really liked the way all the circumstances that have driven mira to become the character she is comes together, and she doesn't seem as bad a protagonist as first impressions would make her seem.
i don't think the book places as much importance in the moral uprightness of its characters as other books tend to, since most of the characters in this book seem to have issues, one way or another. it's not so much a matter of right or wrong, but it seems each character, including the villains, have their own agendas, and they all seem equally justified in some light somehow. at this point of having finished the first book, i think it's pretty apparent what danaus is, and there are even abundant clues offered as to what mira is, though that question was never quite outright asked. maybe it's just strange to me that mira seems more concerned about what danaus is than what she herself might be. on the other hand, the vampires do begin to look more and more like the bad guys here, because it seems their sole strength is in manipulation, and almost everything they do is done in an unnecessarily backhanded way. and yet mira's loyalty seems to be toward the vampires, although maybe that will gradually come to change in future books? one of the main flaws of her character is not being able to figure out the obvious though, so i wonder how long that will be allowed to play out. it also didn't seem much like sadira and jabari were necessary for the triad or whatever, because they really didn't seem to play much of a part in there. i think mira is more important than they would have her believe, or perhaps more than they themselves would prefer to believe.
anyway, at this point, i can't really directly critique the writing style much, since i'm still so enveloped in the story in general. i will say that the prose tends to be beautifully written, with some descriptive abstracts painted here and there that were so poetic in nature that i ended up going back and rereading them just for the pleasure of it--that was certainly not expected. the tension between mira and danaus was also nicely portrayed; i actually found myself being frustrated right along with them when events would pull them apart from their fascination with each other, and it's usually pretty rare to get me to be that involved in any characters' relationships in that way. what's rarer still is my level of involvement with these characters apparently have nothing to do with how much i like these characters, considering that they're all quite flawed, and so i have to respect the author's ability for whatever little additional touch she added that made that possible, at the least. in fact, that fondness for her characters' interactions even overshadows what plot holes i might have picked up from time to time, and it's quite impressive that the characters alone carried this book through a somewhat average premise, and left me wanting more.
and to that end, i'm still quite happy, because the next book in the series is already out. my dilemma now is whether i should move on to that next book, or read the increasingly large pile of books i have checked out from the library. tough choice.
