Baker's Dozen 2

So I'm back with another installment of my baker's dozen

Demon in my View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes is on this list because it was kind of a first for me.  And just as a word of warning, a lot of the books on this list aren't necessarily fantastic literary giants, but are first for me so they have a lasting impression.  This book is one of those.

This book was one of the books that I read after I had gotten burned out on V.C. Andrews books, and this was also my very first young adult novel that I had ever read.  Actually no it wasn't.  In the Forest of the Night by the same author was actually the first book that I had ever read in this genre, but this one has more of a lasting impression that the first one.

Now the book itself is only about 170 pages so it wasn't a very long book, but I was fourteen when I read this book.  I think what first interested me into reading this book was that I saw some review or snippet about the book and I read that the author wrote her first book when she was 14 and this one when she was 16, and because I was close to that age and at the time had dreams of being a published author I thought 'I need to read this.'  And I'm glad I did.  After reading probably 20 or so V.C. Andrews books, I was kind of burnt out of reading the same thing.  This was completely different than anything that I have ever read before so it helped renew my love for reading when I was younger.

This book is about Vampires, yes, people wrote about vampires in the young adult section long before Twilight, and this held a little bit of romance but not too much that as a young teen I would have been grossed out.  Atwater-Rhodes wrote her vampire tales in the classic idea of the breed, their violent, search for blood and are the ultimate apex predator.  But she also wrote about how they are essentially a family and they wish to keep their secrets hidden.  They can go out in sunlight, go to church, aren't terrified of garlic (though the smell is very pungent to their keen sense of smell.)  But I liked how the author wrote out the whole history and family in such a small book.  And looking back at it as an adult now, I'm very impressed that she wrote so beautifully at such a young age.

Now I mentioned that there was a bit of romance in the story but it wasn't over blown, and that it true, essentially what happens is that Jessica is human and Aubrey is vampire (sound familiar huh?).  But Aubrey has every intention of killing Jessica because she is a published author and wrote a story about Aubrey without realizing that it is true.  But in the end they fall in love and become mates, and Jessica becomes a vampire.  But I think what pulled me into the story wasn't the love it was how detailed the author was about who the character Jessica was, how she came to be, what her past was, how she was tied into the vampire book from birth.

This is a stand-alone book, but the character Aubrey has a brief appearance in In the Forest of the Night but you never hear from the characters again in any of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes following vampire books (now I've read that she has released more books that are kind of sequel's to some of her other vampire books so maybe she will have more on this couples story) so she ends the book in a way that you aren't left guessing what's going to happen to the characters.  You get the feel that their going to be ok.

Although this book is relatively simple and easy to read I had to put this on my list simply because it was a first for me.  It was my first young adult novel that I had ever read and it was also my first vampire themed book that I read.