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Forget
Anne Rice and drop that Laurell K. Hamilton book you’ve got in your
hand. If
you’re looking for a dramatic and well-written vampire story, then run
to your
computer and pick up a copy of Beloved
Forever by Kit Tunstall!
Emily,
a college student, is bitten and unwillingly made into a vampire by a
menacing
figure named Nicholas. The book follows Emily’s attempts at learning
how to
live as a vampire, as well as her struggle with her morals and her
feelings for
Nicholas. To Nicholas, this is the moment he has been waiting hundreds
of years
for. Emily is the reincarnation of his lost love, and Nicholas is
determined to
keep her.
To
me, Beloved Forever's
main focus is the dramatic vampire story. It just so happens,
it is also an erotic story. The love scenes work well and in most
cases, they
are integrated into the plot line instead of just being gratuitously
thrown in.
My only problem with them was the use of certain language to describe
genitalia. Sometimes the author uses quite modern words for genitalia
during
flashbacks to events in Nicholas’s past – words that don’t fit with the
way the
characters speak in those scenes.
While
the love scenes are well written with the exception I just mentioned,
the rest
of the book is even better. There are many action scenes, some of which
are
quite violent (not so much in description but in that the events happen
to
characters in the story). It is intriguing to read Emily’s thought
processes as
she fights her emotions and her vampiric urges. This book is different
from
most romantic vampire stories in that Emily doesn’t give in and fall in
love at
first bite. It looks at the harsh realities of becoming a vampire, such
as the
need for blood and what this does to their victims. I could easily see Beloved Forever
sitting on bookstore bookshelves next to Anne Rice’s books, although I
think most traditional publishers would have toned down the erotic
parts.
Reviewed by S. Khaw for The Road to Romance
August 20, 2004
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