Customer Reviews

Snapdragons

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I liked this short story. It was entertaining and held my interest. I like Kallysten's writing style.

Rhea wakes up on a bus bound for Miami, minus six years' worth of memories. A letter in her own handwriting explains that a clan of vampires attacked her agency, her friends, and their families. Forced to hunt them down and kill them, Rhea's chosen to delete the last six years of her life and start over, far from New York.

Broken bits of memories and new and frightening magical talents haunt her, but it's the chance encounter with a former colleague, Peter, that leaves her wondering just where truth and fiction part ways. When her new boss, angered at her clumsiness, attempts to manhandle her, she strikes out, scaring both herself and her now former boss, and she turns to Peter for help.

Peter's not exactly a trustworthy friend. Six years ago, he was kicked out of the Special Enforcer agency for failing to stake the vampire with whom he was sleeping. Now using magic and research, Peter finds treasure for a living. Rhea's magical skills would come in handy tracking down a particularly lucrative sunken galleon - if only she had her memories back...

Snapdragons was a difficult tale to read. Perhaps if it'd been extended to a full novel's length, and the large chunk of flashback removed, the story's flow would have improved. Instead, the reader is left with a flawed heroine (and I use that phrase loosely - basically, she's mentally unstable), and a hero who ends up breaking the hearts of two women in less than fifty pages. Rhea's inability to come to grips with whom and what she is left a sour taste in my mouth. Peter, who was worshipped from afar by Rhea, is a man with his own selfish motives despite his later attempts at redemption. The story's ending leaves the reader dissatisfied, and yearning to assassinate all the main characters, a suitable finale for a tale with no concrete beginning and a depressing handful of words for an ending.

Chris
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed