Customer Reviews

Pretty When She Dies: A Vampire Novel

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I will say, while this book had it's issues for me, it kept my attention.

The story was unique and in a genre like this, that alone says something. The Texan landscape and colorful scruffy cast helps this book stand out from the herd. I enjoyed the character's and their relationships overall.

My main problem with the book was, as another reviewer commented, it could have used a good editor to clean it up. Aspects felt, for lack of a better word, amateur. Word repetition (battered for example) cropped multiple times in a single page, and there were enough grammatical errors and typos to distract. The font size changed periodically as well which was odd.

Little things like that can make it hard for me to maintain my focus within a story, but I found Frater's story and characters engaging enough to forgive some of the clumsiness. I think she has a lot of potential, and as another reviewer pointed out: it's nice to see vampires being bad, they have been thoroughly de-fanged recently. Also the book was nice looking for a self published, and I like the cover art quite a bit.

I found the bloodletting sex scenes surprisingly well done as well, and the sexual tension between the two leads is fun and believable.

All in all, if you love vamp fiction and want to go a little toward the fringes than this could be a good fit.

Have not picked up a vampire novel since Ann Rice ended her Vampire Chronicles. Did not want to re-visit my teen years reading the Twilight stories. After reading Rhiannon's A Zombie Trilogy I decided to give her Vampire novel a try. I am sooo glad that I did. This is a great ADULT vampire story all the way around. Will not get into the story because the book description says it all. Read this book and like me look forward to her new vampire book.

The story starts off with our heroine Amaliya when she wakes up in a fresh grave. Scared, confused, and very hungry she fights her way out of the grave. Once she digs her way out she realizes that she doesn't really even remember her own name. She see things that look familiar to her and she goes to that place. She finds her dorm room on her college campus, so she showers and goes to look for food. What kind she is not certain of at the moment. Along goes our story and she figures out that she wants blood and she is a vampire.

Well - Crap. Amaliya has to high tail it out of there because she killed about 13 people at a sex orgy on the campus. She finds out/remembers at the orgy that her favorite professor asked her out and decided to turn her into a vamp for a bit of a "social experiment". He tells her "you are a vampire and I am not going to help in the least - so good luck." Well - Super Crap!! So she jumps in her Daddy's pickup to go home to see if her family will help her out. This is how our story begins....

What I really liked about the book was that Amaliya embraced her vampire side down the road. She was like - this is what I am and I want to live, so there is no reason to feel guilty. (I like it - it is very unique in a book these days).

You have adventure, excitement, and even romance! I was not expecting a romance in there (I don't know why). Well, the romance was my favorite part. It wasn't like sissy - it was "we are vamps and let's have some yummy dangerous vamp sex". I don't know if that made sense - let's just say they have sex like I would expect vampires to have sex which is "Mega Yummy"!!!

I read the whole book in one day and I really enjoyed myself. I can't wait to read the author's other vamp book. It got better ratings than this one did!

The thing I liked the most about this novel was that the main characters didn't spend half the book feeling bad about what they were. Many vamp books that I've read recently focused so much on guilt and "I hate myself for being a monster" angst that the story suffered. It was refreshing to skip that, for the most part. There were maybe one or two brief instances where it came into play, and that was enough.

The story was creative, the characters were mostly enjoyable and the plot had a solid trajectory. There were a few places where the dialogue was a bit flimsy (the crazy woman who picks up a hitchhiking Amaliya, for example) and some of the wording tripped me up, like referring to the seat of a car as a "chair," but it was generally well written and enjoyable. I'll be interested to see how the story and characters develop in the sequel. I liked this book enough that I'm ready to buy the next one so I can find out.

This book was so much better that I expected she had everything in this book action, suspense, romance.
Its been a while since ive found a vampire book worth reading and I'm so glad I stumbled onto this book.
It was a real page Turner I had a hard time putting it down at night

This book was recommended to me by one of my bloggy BFF's, Missie @ The Unread Reader- and combined with the fact that it was written by Rhiannon Frater, who as you all know, pretty much BLOWS my freaking mind with the expanse of her awesomeness. Needless to say, I was wicked excited to start Pretty When She Dies!

Tattooed, pierced, stiletto wearing Amaliya wakes up- BURIED IN THE GROUND. She's panicked and scared but manages to dig herself out... And all she knows is that she has to get home, and she's feeling a little bit insane at the moment!

After a bloody night spent 'feeding', the reality of what she has become is crystal clear. Her professor of psychology is actually a centuries old vampire known to most as 'The Summoner' for his ability to command the dead to do his will. I KNOW RIGHT?! So she does the only thing that she can think to do, she goes 'home'.

Amaliya's version of home is my version of hell- twice over. Her father is a mean SOB, who married her cousin- RIGHT AFTER her mother died of cancer. Her aunt is a toothless biotch, spat from bowels of Satan himself... As you can imagine, they weren't all that sympathetic to Amaliya's predicament and throw her out almost immediately after her arrival.

Amaliya is walking down the highway wondering how her life turned out like THIS- when Pete, (awwww... Pete!) an old friend, pulls up next to her and offers her a ride... *winks*

After a few hours of INTENSE, passionate lovemaking and him confessing his long-standing love for her... things start to go horribly astray when he flips on the light and finds that she has no reflection in the mirror!!! Yeah... OMG.

Making her way to Dallas to see her Grandmama (duuuuude, Grandmama is the highlight of my LIFE. Loved her!) she hitches a ride with a chick and quickly realizes it was NOT a good plan!

"Not even five minutes had passed and now she had to deal with a bat**** crazy woman."

"It was freaking hard to be a poor *** Texan vampire."

I LOVED Amaliya. Seriously, she was rock your face off AWESOME! As were ALL the characters in Pretty When She Dies! After her very 'exciting' visit with Grandmama and cousin she heads to Austin hoping to find another vampire to understand her new life... since her creator is obviously going to be more trouble than anything else!

In Austin she meets Cian, who is engaged to the very HUMAN, very sweet, fun, and somewhat naive Samantha! Things start to get a tad out of control between Cian and Amaliya... and by 'out of control, I mean H-O-T. Yummy hot.

"She had woken up determined to learn what she could from him and then go off and find her own Rob Zombie lookalike. Or a young Ozzy Osbourne clone that would be nice. Or maybe both."

Sam realizes she losing Cian and goes to a lecture on the supernatural, which is being given by a freaking VAMPIRE HUNTER! And she opens her big mouth and tell Jeff EVERYTHING about Cian and Amaliya...

Roberto, Cian's right hand man, has grown tired of Amaliya's influence in Cian and his life and goes to DRASTIC measures to rid them of her presence!!!!

There is an EPIC fight between The Summoner, and those he created... and Amaliya finds she has a LOT more power than she originally thought! *SQUEE* I can't wait for you to find out what it is!! You'd never believe me if I told you who fights on their side, and who ends up betraying them in the end...

"Love and hate were not so different when passion was involved."~ Not telling you who says this!

Hands down, Pretty When She Dies is one of my FAVORITE reads of this year! Easily, one of the BEST vampire books I've ever read!

Love, betrayal, murder... Romantic, funny and horrific... Amazingly compelling characters and an intensely fantastic plot! Theses are things that only Rhiannon Frater could blend together and make something this EPIC.

A must read and for the price really how can you beat it. I loved this book and you should to I mean how can you beat Zombie and Vampires in one book. From the start hooked she is in a dark place and she realizes she is buried alive???
Really the vampire duo in this make Edward and Bella look like Peter pan and tinker bell. A great read with an amazing story behind it. I loved this book from start to finish if you love Vampires and you can handle a little graphic scenes you will love this book. AMAZING!

This book was one of the first books I read by Rhiannon Frater and I would have to say it was awesome. I truly enjoyed the characters and the story line. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys vampire books. She's a phenomenal writer.

Just the write amount os vampire, violence and sex. Not a kids book. I really enjoyed this book.

All I can say is LOVE IT! LOVE IT! Just a good read all the way around. Please write the other two soon!!