Sunday, May 3, 2009

Ritual & Legacy: 2 Vampire Beach novels by Alex Duval


This book was an impulse purchase on my way home from Brisbane City. I had half an hour to kill and I found this in the Vampire Romance section of the QBD at Garden City, Mount Gravatt (one of my usual haunts when it comes to book-shopping as I always find a bargain there!). Anyway, I got home and got my nose straight into it.
Even though this is the second book of a series, it can carry a story on its own. It does juxtapose back to the first book (which now I have to buy to read and catch up on exactly what's been going on!) but it still has the romance, tension, murder and mayhem that Alex Duval is famous for... however, this isn't an adult's book, nope, it's YA book; and still, I found it brilliantly written and full of everything a ravenous Vampire Romance reader like myself is looking for.

Now, I do read the really steamy Vampire Romance ones, but this one is just as good as the vampire books I get into; and it's very much up with the times. It's storyline is based in California with Hollywood kids and rich, beautiful people where everything is still money, money, money... yet there's still the undead to think about - or is there?

The brilliance of Alex Duval is that he has put two books into one; giving his readers two wonderful stories for the price of around $20.00... not a bad price if you ask me. 'Ritual' is about the vampires of the local high school being hunted and killed by a Vampire Hunter. However, the families haven't heard of them in centuries; and so they don't really take the threat seriously, until one of their own kids get killed. Then, it's a matter for the police, who bring in a specialist from interstate who's got a nose for this kind of thing... or is he really in it to kill off the population of vampires in Hollywood?
'Legacy' was a little weaker I found. It was interesting still, however, I found it a little disjointed in places. I guess it was because the families were fighting over who should be going out with whom; that kind of got old really quickly for me. I'm not sure how another reader will feel about it. This story also has a lot to do with the vampires who were once human and how the transformation can affect them in the longrun.

Overall, both books in this one were wonderful. I definitely want to know what happens next... after all it's a series he's written and I'm all for reading a series. So, look for this author in future posts. I'll have had my nose in his other books in the next few months; without a doubt.

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