Pretty When She Dies

Amaliya wakes under the forest floor, disoriented, famished and confused. She digs out of the shallow grave and realizes she is hungry…

… in a new, horrific, unimaginable way…

Sating her great hunger, she discovers that she is now a vampire, the bloodthirsty creature of legend. She has no choice but to flee from her old life and travels across Texas. Her new hunger spurs her to leave a wake of death and blood behind her as she struggles with her new nature.

All the while, her creator is watching. He is ancient, he is powerful, and what’s worse is that he’s a necromancer. He has the power to force the dead to do his bidding. Amaliya realizes she is but a pawn in a twisted game, and her only hope for survival is to seek out one of her own kind.

But if Amaliya finds another vampire, will it mean her salvation… or her death?

“How could banging a hot professor end up this badly?”

My Summary and Review: I found this book title through Blog with Bite when we were voting for our April selections.  Naturally, when I’m on the fence about books, I turn to voting by book price! LOL!  This book won my vote because it was $1.99 on Kindle through Amazon (and it still is .

Since this book didn’t win our April selection, I had planned on putting it on my TBR list.  But then my sister borrowed my Kindle while I was busy with a few paperbacks.  Well, she “LOVED IT!” And practically forced me to bump it up.

First thing is first! The book takes place in TEXAS! Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Texas crazed gal with a lot of love for her home state! So to find Amaliya hanging out in all my old haunts in Central TX was uber cool!

The story actually beings in East Texas, where college student, Amaliya Vezorak, wakes up to finder herself bury under ground.  After freeing herself, she gets cleaned up and realizes she is hungry! Happening upon a secret orgy at a frat house, Amailya has her fill of blood and then encounters her creator, a lendenary vampire known as The Summoner.

The Summoner reveals to Amaliya what she is now a vampire.  Feeling confused and scared, Amailya flees, trying to seek refuge with her dad, whom she has never had a good relationship with.  When it becomes clear that she can not rely on her father, she head to North Texas to say goodbye to her grandmother, planning on living her new undead life on the run.

Through a series of events that Amaliya considers her “bad luck” she resolves that she will have to find another vampire to help her learn how to adapt to her being.  Soon enough she finds Cian, The Vampire Master of Austin, or rather he finds her.

She learns that Cian was created by the same vampire as her, and that Cian is desperately trying to hold on to his human self, does not allow other vampires to enter his territory and is even engaged to a human.  

Cian feels drawn to Amaliya, though he tries to deny it since he is engaged, but he does sympathize with her now that she is being toyed with by The Summoner.  He allows her to stay with  him, and even allows her to feed from him. *insert hot bloodlust scene here* Fiance who?

After Cian is betrayed by his long time servant, Roberto, he and Amaliya have to go and seek out The Summoner.  Suddenly, then seem doomed to die at their creators hands.  Little do they know that a band of humans, including Cian’s fiance, Sam, a vampire hunter, Jeff, and Amalyia’s grandmother, Innocente and cousin, Sergio, are on their way to help them!

And I have to admit, although this book was riddled with mistakes, typos, and repetitive statements, I really enjoyed it, and am now looking forward to the next book, Pretty When She Kills.  Amaliya herself was a very interesting character, and very unique; just dont confuse her metal head attire/nature with that of a goth girl!        

The plot was intriguing and there were a lot of characters introduced, characters that were interesting to explore more of.  Background stories for The Summoner and Cian were revealed and there was a lot of fun action scenes, along with some rough loving!  Blood and Sex! Whattaya gonna do?

“It can’t be gentle,” he whispered. “Not the first time.”   

My rating: It was hard for me to rate this book, but at the end, I decided on 3.5 squees! I dont think it can be denied that this is a good story, but I really had a hard time with all the mistakes!  Somewhere in the middle of reading, I thought, no way this book when through an editor, and sure enough, at the end, in the Author’s Note, I found out it was self published. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it did make me wonder if the book was edited at all.

Check out the Author’s Blog!