Taniquelle Tulipano: Dead Beginnings

You know the drill. I download a free e-book and expect miracles from the read despite knowing that good quality reads are hardly given for free because they don't need that. Good reviews and recommendations come naturally to them and hence the lack of good free stuff. So I am naturally wary of these books but keep reading them anyway. 

This time, the book was 200 pages long so I assumed it wouldn't be too bad. Enough space to develop characters. Oh boy, was I wrong. Because there can be bad developing as well. You can actually make someone even worse than in a short story. 

Don't get me wrong, the writing isn't bad. But it's the story development I'm not a fan of. See, at the beginning we are given a deranged vampire who likes to play with girls and then erase their minds when he is finished with them so that they never remember they were played with. He is a lunatic who makes them swoon and cringe in terror right after. That's the good part of the story, the potential.

But unfortunately this 300-year-old vampire falls for his latest victim and can't erase her memory (any flashbacks?!) and even though he is a part of some kind of holier-than-thou vampire police, he still gets to go on feeding sprees and use young ladies. 

He is given three siblings who act unnaturally and instead of lightening the mood of the story as (probably) intended, they just make it more ridiculous. On the top of it all there is this whole Stockholm Syndrome girl who doesn't want to be let go even though she can see what a lunatic asylum she has gotten into. 

The story disappointed me because mad vampires hold so much potential. Unfortunately the dialogue and motives of action got more and more ridiculous as the story progressed. And there is a cliffhanger. You know my opinion on those. I hate unfinished stories but unlike normally I'm not compelled to buy the next instalment because even though the cliffhanger shows potential (a new mysterious evil vampire comes to play) I doubt it will be better than this.

GENRE: twisted romance

FANGS OUT: loonies are out there
FANGS RETRACTING: pathetic characters
TOTAL SCORE:

And now a rant about a certain trope I can't ignore any more since so many books (the one from today's review including) have it: She had curves in all the right places.

WTF? Where are those? And what happens to women who have curves in the wrong places or to those who don't posses these mythological features? It seems like every frickin' romance has a heroine who is curved just right. If, God forbid, she has the wrong curves she can't appear in a novel. That would be so gross and un-heroine-like.

Since I still don't know where the infamous curves are supposed to be and where not, I'm not sure what kind of women gets eliminated from being a novel protagonist but I feel like I must state that frickin' curves should not decide whether you become a heroine or not.