Katie, or rather Kat as she prefers to be called, is the main character of Kat’s Tale – Undying Live Vampire Series by Teresa Mummert. Thinking of vampires conjures up long held myths such as being able to kill them with wooden stakes through the heart, driving them away with garlic and crucifixes, and their insatiable craving for human blood. In the past, vampires were always the personification of evil, but no longer. These forces of nature now enjoy the same constitutional rights of mortals, have their own blood banks, have careers and have romantic relationships.
Kat’s Tale opens with Kat’s dark night of the soul on the edge of a hotel roof. She is about to commit suicide over the murder of her brother. “I stood on the ledge of my hotel’s roof. I kicked my sandals off and watched them flutter to the ground below. They disappeared into the darkness of the night. I hoped I would be as lucky.” Of course, Kat changes her mind at the last minute, and that’s a good thing as the entire novel eventually proves.
Kat’s Tale has two romantic interests, Gavin (her boyfriend) and Caleb. Both Gavin and Caleb are great characters; Kat finds herself torn between protective yet party-loving Gavin and the mysterious Caleb. Caleb brings out feelings of sympathy, fright, compassion and love. From the beginning the reader is teased into wanting to know who in the heck is Caleb and what is he about?
The main character seems to have been living in some sort of bubble, never having heard about vampires. Caleb saves her butt on more than one occasion from what can only be described as the Vampire Mafia. She quickly learns not all people are what they appear and every person dead is not gone, including her brother, Marcus. Kat learns all debts are due at the door, and payments are to be made in full: “A debt of two vampires for the two he killed.”
Author Teresa Mummert‘s Kat’s Tale ends in classic cliff hanger style that leaves the reader wanting more of every woman’s ideal man, Caleb.
Dixon says: Kathy Bobo is obviously a fan of the paranormal, especially vampires. I believe her love of the genre got in the way of offering constructive criticism; other than one sentence about the protagonist living in a bubble, there was no mention of the slightest imperfection. A whitewash like this doesn’t help the author improve her craft, and might lead potential buyers to suspect the review is written by a relative or close friend of the author.
A quick perusal of the review makes it seem that all the clichés from Twilight and True Blood were scrambled together. A more interesting approach might have been to look at how the clichés are stood on their head and made fresh in a way that helps this story rise above the “typical” vampire romance.
Kathy Bobo has a clear and lively voice, and I think she’s capable of much better. Hopefully she will learn that it’s okay to be critical of stories she enjoys, and create more balanced reviews.
So what do you think? Was I too rough on Kathy, or did I give her sound advice that will help her writing career?
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