Book Review - Night Rising (Vampire Babylon, Book One) by Chris Marie Green

Book Description
In this first book of an all-new trilogy, life proves stranger than the movies when a Hollywood underground coven of vampires comes to light-and gets targeted by the tough-as-nails daughter of a sexy screen siren.

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison hasn't been on the best of terms with her father since her movie star mother died. Still, he is her dad, and when he vanishes while investigating the bizarre sighting-caught on film-of a supposedly long-dead child star, she comes home to Tinseltown to join the search for him. Working with his odd colleagues, she discovers an erotic and bloody underground society made up of creatures she thought existed only on the screen.

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April 26

I'm having a hard time coming up with my thoughts on this book. I did like it and will read the next one, but there was just something off about the whole thing. Maybe because there were a bunch of loose ends at the end of the book than was necessary, but who knows. I didn't get the whole promiscuous thing, mostly because it didn't feel like it belonged in the book. Yes, I am a bit of a prude, but since it's fiction that doesn't come into play much. In this book, I just didn't get it and felt like it was added for the whole "sex sells" thing. I mean that thing with "the Voice" was just plain weird and creepy. Quite few times I thought Dawn needed to get over herself and quit whining about her mother. She's twenty-four, she needs to act like it, not like some angsty teenager. I get it - it's hard to grow up with a beautiful mother who died too young and being compared to her when you're only average looking is hard (Although the cover model is above average looking. Marketing? I think so. :P), but deal with it already. I really didn't care about her and thought overall that Kiko was the best character of the bunch. Hopefully in the next book they are all developed better and Dawn grows up.

You can tell the author has taken some things from other medias: The Crow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially with Dawn being the "key" and probably from other things I haven't seen or read so can't compare. I think that detracted from the book because I don't want to compare the stories; I'd rather the book stood alone as it is.

Nearer the end it had me wondering about a certain character and if that was a hint to what's to come in future books. That's probably the main reason I'll read on, although there are some interesting concepts in the book too, especially the vampire world. It is very interesting and they don't appear to be only good or only evil, as most other books make them, there are some of varying degrees of good and evil - like humans - and they're just trying to survive without being found out - at least that's how I took it. All in all it was a decent read, just slightly better than the average urban fantasy book.

3.5 stars

***

Here is part of an Amazon review that I agree with:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'd like to read her second book perhaps, February 19, 2007
By R. Kyle (Knoxville, TN)
"Meanwhile, a rash of current stars are starting to die mysteriously. The Vampire Underground is investigating Limpet. Dawn is feeling attraction both to her boss and Matt Lonigan.

"Night Rising" had a lot of promise for a first novel. Ms. Green introduced some interesting and quirky elements, but the blend of fantasy-mystery-thriller didn't quite come off.

For starters, there wasn't enough procedural knowledge doing both the PI and crime scene work to actually qualify it as a mystery.

Additionally, I didn't feel that Ms. Green's world was as fully realized as it could be.

While Green's characters were interesting, they were more 'paper tigers' than real people. She needed to work on depth and motivation of the characters instead of just giving them toss-off lines, etc.

Pacing was also slow--for a book with thriller elements, this was a slow read. Action scenes needed to be shortened. Better hooks needed to be planted to keep the reader moving forward.

I did not feel that the world was as complete as it could be. The hierarchy of vampires was interesting as well as the interaction of their human servants. I'd like to see a little more developed world in a published book. I have hopes that Green will do more work on this aspect in future works.

Finally, Ms. Green did not fully sum up any of the plotlines. While I am very willing to buy serial fiction, I prefer at least one major line of the story being resolved with a few teasers added to bring me back to the author's world. The summation felt like just an invite to buy the next book."