Of Darkness and Light

Author: Shayne Leighton

Series: Of Darkness and Light # 2

Genres: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult

Publisher: Decadent Publishing

Released: 28 June 2011

Summary: courtesy of goodreads.com When one human stands before an army of impossible obstacles, the likelihood of overcoming them in this coming-of-age modern fairytale may result in war between light and darkness.
Abandoned as an infant in Prague, naive and strong-willed Charlotte Ruzikova was raised by one of the last Vampires left alive. As a human, she knows no other home than the one nestled deep in the woods of Eastern Europe, where Witches drew spells of enchantment, Phasers threw tea parties, and Elves are the closest in kin. Charlotte has lived her life in the dark with her Guardian, content to having him to herself and reveling in his attention, until she's realizes she wants more...
Resident medical doctor and Vampire, Valek Ruzik fears the day his ward would come of age and blossom into a fine woman, and he is forced to confront his own motives as time is of the essence once his past catches up to him, and their lives become endangered...
As genocide and war threatens their secret society, the dictator in power is ready to wipe out Valek's race, but Charlotte will not allow that to happen. Fighting for the only one she's ever loved and truly believed in, she will do whatever it takes to save their love...before the sun comes up and light takes over.

My Review: We’re going into this review feet first, because I tried to think of a witty opening line and couldn’t.  Here is the deal with The Vampire’s Daughter.  It was interesting.  The premise was well thought out and original (a human raised by a vampire ends up falling in love with her vampire “father”) and placing the story in Prague was a stroke of genius.   The world building was fantastic, and all of the supporting character had strong motivations.  However, there were parts of this novel that fell a little bit flat for me, and no, it wasn’t the romance.  It was the motivation behind the romance.

I didn’t feel like it was very well explained as to why these two fell in love with each other.  Except for a few crying scenes (Charlotte really, really likes to cry) I didn’t feel like there was a lot of explanation.  Why decide to start like Valek now?  Was there a psychological trigger or did you just wake up one morning and think: I’m going to have a crush on my dad now.  There are a few sentences here and there stating that she had been having these types of feelings for a while, but I wanted to know the trigger behind it, I wanted to know more about what motivated Charlotte to suddenly like Valek.  And in return I wanted to know why Valek decides to reciprocate.  Because there were some parts when it didn’t feel “real” to me.  Letting everyone feed off of the girl you love turned my stomach and really made me question what the heck Valek was thinking.  I was totally okay with rooting for Valek and Charlotte (their relationship was unconventional, but these days most are, and the idea was original so major bonus points for that.) I just wanted a little more explanation about why they felt this innate need to be together.  They’re taking on a lot in order to make it work.  I really hope it will be explained better if another novel featuring these two is written.

The Vampire’s Daughter gets 3/5 because although I really liked it (and I DID) I wanted to see more motivations between the characters.  If someone was looking for a new take on the vampire novel I would recommend this one.  It has romance, violence, and traditional take blood from the vein vamps that don’t go out during the day and are in a war against other paranormal creatures.  Awesome first novel Ms Leighton!

A copy of this novel was obtained via NetGalley for review purposes.