Plot:
Lately things have been getting weird for pathology technician Kat Chanter. She’s been craving raw meat, and having dreams so realistic they’re scary. When she accepts a job offer from the prestigious Hema Castus Research Institute, she hopes she’ll have the chance to discover what’s wrong with her, but instead, her move to New York thrusts her headlong into a treacherous hidden world, where the wrong move could be fatal . . .
Tarot, witchcraft and astrology all take on a frightening resonance in Dark Child‘s richly imagined alternative reality where vampiric beings live among us, hidden by magic. Dark romance tangles with paranormal fantasy and page-turning suspense in this enthralling tale of ‘dark child’ Kat Chanter, half-human and half-vampire, who has woken an ancient prophecy and must face a formidable destiny.
Review:
I was first drawn to this book because it was recommended for fans of Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series. Having really enjoyed what I’ve read so far from that series, I decided to give this book a go.
The first thing that I noticed about this book is that it is actually five “episodes: stitched together to make one book. While reading, I was always on the lookout to see if I could tell where each episode ended, and I never once found such a place. The writing flowed well and kept me very interested in the characters’ stories.
Perhaps one of the things that bothered me the most about this book was how “stereotypically YA fantasy” it was. Kat’s body starts going through really weird changes. She wonders “oh my goodness, what’s wrong with me???” She then discovers that she is a part of a secret world she never knew about, due to her absent father, about whom Kat knows absolutely nothing. Well, turns out he had some secrets that he was keeping. Surprise!
Even though Kat has all this new information thrust upon her, she never once says “You people are nuts!”, and in fact just sort of blindly accepts that whatever these weirdos are saying must be true. Okay, Kat, making real good decisions there.
Then, among the Tabérin people (aka the quasi-vampires), there is a feud among the two different factions. Because there has to be some sort of added drama, right?
To top it all off, there’s even a little love-triangle action going on towards the end of the book. Not nearly as bad as the love triangles in many other works, but nonetheless annoying. Can’t characters ever have “normal” love lives?
All of this being said, I really enjoyed reading this book and I think that the series has a lot of potential for future installments. I just wish that the book hadn’t taken the “How To Write a YA Novel Checklist” so seriously. I give this book 3.5/5 stars.