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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Velvet

Velvet: Temple West

First rule of dealing with hot vampire bodyguards? Don't fall in love.

After losing both her parents before age seventeen, aspiring designer Caitlin Holte feels like her whole world has been turned upside down, and that was before the terrifying encounter with a supernatural force. Then, she learns that her hot bad-boy neighbor, Adrian—who might have just saved her life—is actually a half-demon vampire.

Suddenly Caitlin is stuck with a vampire bodyguard who feels that the best way to protect her is to become her pretend boyfriend. Trouble is, Caitlin is starting to fall in love for real, while Adrian can never love a human. Caitlin trusts Adrian to keep her safe from his demon father, but will he be able to protect her heart?


I freaking love vampire stories. It is no secret that I'm still super obsessed with The Sookie Stackhouse novels, even though the series is over now :(. I love everything about the vampire genre, except I've never actually read Twilight. I don't have anything against it, but I just never really picked it up. However, I do know that paranormal books aren't for everybody! I'm pretty particular with vampire stories just because my expectations are so high after the Sookie series. 


"Maybe actually punching someone in the face instead of just wishing 
I could punch someone in the face would make me feel a little better."

So - why am I particular about vampire stories? I just like the original folklore surrounding vampires. You know - they can't go out in the daytime, they are sensitive to silver, a stake through the heart kills them, superhuman strength, etc. It's hard to find fun vampire novels that have all of these things because  I guess it's pretty inconvenient for the storyline if main character's can't go out in the daytime. Velvet didn't really follow the original folklore of vampirism, which kind of bothered me. Adrian is the vampire bodyguard. He can go out during the daytime - but he did have superhuman strength and needed blood to sustain himself. There was really no mention of silver or stakes, but maybe just because it was a topic that really didn't have an opportunity to present itself. Anyway, I just feel like books that say a character is a vampire but they just do all the things humans do is kind of useless, like a pretend vampire or something. 



There were a few things that I'm still kind of confused on. Caitlin would have these nightmares, but we never really figured out why. It kind of seemed like they only started after the whole demon thing was brought up but I wish there was more explanation about them. It is a series, so maybe that will be explained more in the upcoming books. Another thing I was confused on was Adrian's brother, Julian. Julian kind of seemed to hate humans in the beginning, but by the end he was not really minding Adrian and Caitlin together. Was there a turning point for him or did he just not really care anymore? OMG Adrian's other brother Lucian was so freaking cute. I guarantee you'll love him if you read this! He was a young vampire so he really didn't feel any hate towards humans and didn't understand why they couldn't be friends with them. 


"'Hi'. I returned, and climbed into the passenger side. 'You're still a vampire?'
'Yep.'
'Cool, yeah, just checking.'"

This book was super fun. That's not really the first thing that comes to mind when you think of vampires and demons, but it honestly really was. Even though the vampires in this book weren't my all time favorite, it was still a great read. Caitlin and Adrian was a blossoming romance, and it wasn't really insta-love either. It was a great paranormal romance! I was never bored, which is really important for me when reading a book. If you liked Velvet, I guarantee you'll love the Sookie Stackhouse series! It's like Velvet but New Adult-y and the vampires follow the original myths without it becoming too monotonous. I definitely think that I'll be continuing with the Velvet series, especially because it ended on a little cliff-hanger! Will you be reading Velvet? Do you have a favorite vampire book series? 



6 comments:

  1. I saw this book in B&N, but it looked so tiny so i didn't pick it up. I know that's weird that base books on size but usually big books have time to captivate me and develop a story. The book sounds better than I thought it would be but I'm still mixed about this book. Great review and very convincing :D

    Alex @ The Book's Buzz

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    1. Thank you! and surprisingly, it actually wasn't tiny. The pages were just really thin compared to other books. It was almost like 400 pages and the text was spaced smaller as well!

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  2. OOh nice! I love a good vampire story as well! I entered numerous contests for this one and since they've all ended I'm assuming I lost, so I ordered a copy of this on Sunday! It's funny you mention the "rules" vampires of old use to follow and how some these days just do whatever they want. With my own WIP I did have to change the rule for walking in daylight. Mainly because too much happens and I can't wait for night every time! LOL! But I liked how the Southern Vampire series pulled it off. That was a treat!

    Looking forward to reading this one hopefully sometime soon! Great review!

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    1. I know, right? I freaking love vampires! It does seem like a lot of stories change the lore of vampires so they can walk in daylight. That does make sense though because so much does happen in daylight. But I'm so happy Charlaine Harris can pull off vampires so well - she even does it in her Midnight Texas novels! She's awesome.

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  3. What I like about the sound of this book is that like you mentioned it sounds fun. I love that. I have this on my TBR. I hope I can get my hands on it!

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    1. I hope you can read it soon! The fun part definitely reminded me of the Sookie Stackhouse novels because they were so fun, too! If you like paranormal and NA, I definitely recommend you put that on your TBR as well. (Don't let the cover scare you, LOL)

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