Jenn's Review: Infinite Days

Summary:  "Throughout all my histories, I found no one I loved more than you...no one."

Those were some of Rhode's last words to me. The last time he would pronounce his love. The last time I would see his face.

It was the first time in 592 years I could take a breath. Lay in the sun. Taste.

Rhode sacrificed himself so I, Lenah Beaudonte, could be human again. So I could stop the blood lust.

I never expected to fall in love with someone else that wasn't Rhode.

But Justin was...daring. Exciting. More beautiful than I could dream.

I never expected to be sixteen again...then again, I never expected my past to come back and haunt me...



Review:  To tell the truth, I've been a little vampired-out so it took me a while to get around to reading this.  I shouldn't have waited; I adore this book!  Rebecca Maizel brings a fresh and fascinating take on vampires.

The story begins after Lenah's human transformation with well chosen flashbacks to her vampire life. It's a difficult style of storytelling (it can get so mired and bogged down), but Ms. Maizel pulls it off beautifully.  This way we experience Lenah from two perspectives, as the terrifying Vampire Queen, and as a teenager dumped in the wrong century.  The reader is taken along as Lenah grows and adapts to life in the twenty first century.  Lenah is endearing as she becomes human and her Vampire instincts begin to fade.

But the coven is looking for her, and what chance does a mere mortal stand against a vicious set of Vampires?  How do you protect your friends let alone yourself?

Ms. Maizel has created some fascinating vampires too. I am enthralled with Rhode, both his unusual vampiric nature and his ultimate sacrifice. Suleen is another vampire drifting in and out of the story, that I can't wait to learn more about. I have read some criticism for her characters being underdeveloped, and I think it's unfounded.  One of the caveats of writing in the first person, is that you only get to see the story from one person's point of view, the narrator.  Ms. Maizel has brilliantly given us two points of view through the narrator, and I think asking for more is a bit much.  Yes, some things are left to the imagination, but the readers perspective of each character changes as Lenah's does.  It is subtly, but cleverly accomplished.

This book is an enchanting twist on an, albeit, overrun subject. Rebecca Maizel made me fall in love with Vampires again.  I didn't think that was possible.  I anxiously await the second installment of the Vampire Queen series, Stolen Nights, due out June 22, 2011.

Final Take: 4.5/5.0