When Darkness Falls by Ellen Chauvet
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Review:
As a fan of paranormal romance, and in particular, vampires, I was looking forward to reading When Darkness Falls.
The plot idea is great – the fight between good and evil is always a popular theme, as we can see by the thousands of books that dominate this genre. Finding an original take on vampire fiction and paranormal romance is a tough task. For me, this book didn’t quite deliver.
What let the book down were things like monotone descriptions of the mundane, such as shopping for a purple jumper, a scene that went on for pages but didn’t drive the story forward in any way. I didn’t connect with the characters very well, they begged for deeper descriptions which could be used to create memorable pictures in my head.
The lead figure Lexie, is a vampire executioner, granted, she is new to the gig, but one minute she’s getting into her groove and the next she’s swooning or worrying about her random (and swiftly changeable) emotions towards every man in the vicinity rather than having an intense, sassy, brutal persona. It leaves the reader confused.
Many paranormal romance books have reasonably explicit sex scenes, I know the author was trying to make her mark in this genre, however, the sexual encounters in this book were clumsy and hugely untasteful. It almost felt like the author was attempting to fit as many sexually explicit words into a sentence as possible.
Sadly for me, the reading experience didn’t live up to the expectations I felt when reading the book blurb. Paranormal romance is a saturated genre in the book market and this book needs a bit more TLC to get it ready to compete.
I received a copy of When Darkness Falls in exchange for an honest review via Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT
Blurb:
Lexie Miles, a southern belle living her dream life in Paris, is devastated when her best friend Emma is brutally raped and murdered by vampires. From that moment Lexie’s “perfect world” begins to crumble. She discovers her entire life has been a sham and everyone she cares about has been lying to her. Angry doesn’t begin to describe her reaction to the news.
Plunged into a two-thousand year old war between good and evil, she is propelled into a world of blood, lust and dark secrets. She must embrace her birthright to fight an ancient threat to humanity. Bequeathed with the dubious gift of being the “Chosen One,” Lexie meets the enigmatic Etienne Benoit. She falls hard for him and when he betrays her, she vows to get revenge. After all, she is a vampire executioner and killing vampire is what she does.
Shelley Wilson Author 
Sounds like you struggled to find anything good to say about this.
When Kindle publishing started, the problem was often very good books hidden away behind homemade covers and amateur sounding blurbs. Now, I think the opposite happens; writers read all their blog posts about first impressions and get the professional cover art, read up about how to write great blurbs – but forget that it’s not all in the marketing; the book actually needs to be good too!
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So true! I’ve come across quite a few stunning covers, and the blurb has hooked me in 100%, but then it’s like pulling teeth when I get into the actual book. All the more reason to highlight the importance of book reviews!
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