Tomes of Shadowstalking
Tomes of ShadowstalkingWelcome to the land of shadows, where evil is the greatest power, where nightfall marks the birth of terror, where your very soul is at risk. Join me as I investigate worlds filled with black magic and dark souls and encounter the monsters rule these wicked places.
This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.
That said, on to the review!
Poppy's time in the world is coming to an end...or is it? Certainly, being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer--for which the prognosis for survival is very, very grim--isn't a very heartening prospect. But there is another world part of yet apart from her world of ordinary things, a world which her best friend for many years, James Rasmussen, belongs to. He offers her a very dangerous invitation: to join him in the Night World as a made vampire and as the life-long soulmate of a lamia, or "born" vampire, which is what he is. The danger is very real, for by even telling her about the Night World, he's broken one of their greatest laws. By offering to make her a vampire he's broken one minor law in the name of breaking the other of their greatest laws: falling in love with a human. If she accepts his invitation, she will never age and never become ill again. But if she accepts, she may not long survive her turning, not with all the Night World legally able to kill them both. But the alternative is giving up and dying of pancreatic cancer. What's the worse fate, dying in at most three months or possibly being hunted throughout eternity?
As introductions to a new series goes, Secret Vampire is an excellent one to the Night World series of books. While some authors might spend page upon page upon page to establish the rules and parameters of a new world, L.J. Smith spreads the Night World out as lying atop, within, and beside the human world, so there is really little to worry about. Yet it is quite clear that the ordinary human world and the Night World are two definitely different and separate levels of existence. That's one of the interesting things about the premise of this series: that the one world, which might be infinitely more powerful than the other, fears the other so much that it is bound and determined to keep its existence a secret!
This book is a terrific change from the world crafted in the Secret Circle, Vampire Diaries, Forbidden Game, and even the Dark Vision series. For one thing, this time we have the witches and the vampires and the werewolves tied together in one world as opposed to two. For another, while certain things seem to carry over from earlier series, the Night World books present other takes on those same things. Remember the silver cord from the Secret Circle books? It reappears here as the "soulmate principle," and it plays an even larger part--in an understated way--in these books. Also, while the vampires of Fell's Church needed special talismans to go abroad in daylight, the vampires of the Night World are free to come and go as they please...though the sunlight does weaken them and dilutes their powers. Some of these changes might be problematic for those accustomed to traditional vampires, but I found this adaptation of the legend very palatable, possibly even moreso than the talismans in the Vampire Diaries series.
While a YA novel--like all of L.J. Smith's other books--Night World: Secret Vampire deals quite candidly with a very real, very adult issue: namely, being diagnosed with a terminal illness. The resolution to this situation might offend older readers because of the "miracle cure" to the problem, but other issues--such as what love is and what its boundaries are--will likely pacify those disgruntled readers...if they're disgruntled in the first place!
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