My Wicked Vampire (Castle of Dark Dreams, # 4) by Nina Bangs

My Wicked Vampire (The Castle of Dark Dreams, Book 4) by Nina Bangs

Leisure Books (September 29, 2009)

336 pages

$7.99 (Amazon.com, 08/22/09)

Plot: 3

Setting: 4

Writing: 5

Originality: 5

Characters: 4

Passion: 5

Overall: 26/30 = 86% - B

Cover/Title Bonus: 2

Dorchester Pub sent this to me a few weeks ago to be reviewed.

Plot

Cinn is the newly hired attraction at The Castle of Dark Dreams. She has a talent with plants. She doesn’t know what’s she’s gotten herself into, wants to leave but is forced to stay for at least two weeks per her boss: Sparkle Stardust. She’s thrown into the castle managers who turn out to be wizards, demons, cosmic troublemakers, and vampires. Oh, there are also talking cats and plants! :) And because of the plants there’s an angry Goddess after Cinn!

Setting

The Castle of Dark Dreams is like a theme parks for adults wishing to live “fantasies” that just so happen to be real supernatural beings living amongst each other. A lot of the story takes place in Cinn’s greenhouse, the dungeon, and various rooms of the Castle. There’s a shopping trip to a well known super store chain that is rather adventurous. One character has a talent to make dream fantasies which are pretty cool.

Writing

This was my first book by Nina Bangs. She did very well at keeping my attention. The detail used in the plants and the castle were very well done. The tone was light yet realistic.

Originality

The setting made this book incredibly original. The plants were out of this world! I had not read a book with the main character being a botanist or rather a gifted botanist who creatures plants that mature into having feelings, talking telepathically, and even moving!

Characters

This was the first book I’ve read that a few of the characters were plants! Vince was a not so normal periwinkle. I actually looked at him as a character and not just a plant. How cool is that?

Cinn was a pretty normal girl, besides having the wicked green thumb.

Sparkle was such an overbearing nonsense character. I felt like smacking her a few times.

Dacian is a vampire that suffers from bouts of rage cast onto him by his maker Stephan, who is trying to create an army of vampires loyal to him. Dacian refuses to join forces, which brings all hell down on the occupants of The Castle of Dark Dreams.

Oh, and how exactly do you say his name: Dacian? I was angry by how I could not pronounce his name in my head! I ended up just calling him D. I did NOT like his name!!!

Ganymede is a cat by choice and Sparkle’s other half. He consumes enormous amounts of junk food and has a ton of the troublemaker power. And breaks out into a gorgeous, ass kicking human form at the end of the book.

There are a few other characters that have minor roles and are very cool.

Passion

Cinn and Dacian are the major characters of the book. They end up bonding because Dacian has the role of protecting Cinn from the plant Goddess. Their relationship does turn sexual and very romantic actually. Dacian is a true gentleman in his own way.

Overall

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining this book was. I still can’t believe how much fun it was to have plants, cats, vampires, Goddesses, and the troublemakers all thrown together as a big happy family. It was weird yet fascinating at the same time.

Cover/Title

The title seems to follow the rest of the series with the word wicked being included. The cover image however is being shared with another book that was recently released: The Eternal Kiss.

I like the cover of My Wicked Vampire oh so much better than The Eternal Kiss but it wouldn’t be my first pick for this book. Something with a castle and maybe PLANTS on it would have been entirely more appropriate than a picture of a lady with multiple ear piercings. It shows nothing of what to expect in this book what so ever.

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