The Argeneau series is one of the most popular adult vampire romance series of all time. I’ve heard mixed things about the series, but I am a sucker for vampire romance stories. I decided to give this book a shot, pick up a few copies of the other books in the series in thrift stores, and check it out.
In this first installment of the series, you meet a psychiatrist named Gregory and a vampire named Lissianna. When Lissianna finds Gregory tied to her bed on her birthday, she thinks that he is as a sexy birthday present from her friends. To her surprise, her mother has abducted him to cure her of her fear of blood. Yes, Lissianna is a vampire who is deathly afraid of blood and faints at the sight of it. This is obviously a problem for someone whose main diet is blood, especially as feeding directly from humans is looked down on. She has taken to feeding on people in shelters, which is making her sick since many of them are in poor health. This is unsustainable, and her mother hopes that a psychiatrist will cure her phobia so she will be able to move on to feeding on the blood bags that all vampires are freely provided. Gregory and Lissianna slowly grow closer as she tries to overcome some of her greatest fears.
Honestly, I didn’t see as much chemistry as I would have liked between the two main characters. Gregory was a bit of a dull character for me, but Lissianna was pretty unique as a vampire afraid of blood. By the time I got to the middle of the book, I realized that I was reading the book for the story/worldbuilding and not the romance. Which is quite strange for me as I read a romance novel! I wanted to learn more about Lissianna’s family and their past. They’d lived for centuries and had a lot of baggage from those previous years. Definitely gave me flashbacks to the Originals from Vampire Diaries. I would have been happy just having a story learning more about the family’s history, but I’m sure more of that will pop up in future books of the series.
Some of the parts of this story were very funny to read for me. When this book was originally published, I was 5 years old. It’s funny to be taken back to 2005 and see what life was supposed to be like for modern young adults then. That’s the main difference that I kind of love and hate about urban fantasy novels. Urban fantasy/modern fantasy is supposed to take place in the real world and so often reflects the year that it took place. Other
This isn’t a typical fluffy vampire romance read. It is very clear from the start of the series that Sands wanted to go somewhere with this series. Did she expect the series to keep going for as long as it did? Probably not. But she definitely had a vision of the world she wanted to create, and I was happy to be able to see this from reading the very first book in the series.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for an adult urban fantasy novel/adult paranormal romance novel.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 books.
