Temple West

Orphaned before she was seventeen, aspiring designer Caitlin Holte is saved from a supernatural force by Adrian, her "bad-boy" neighbor who, she learns, is a half-demon vampire willing to serve as her bodyguard, but unable to protect her heart when Caitlin falls in love with him.

Velvet

Gisela Ayala 

I think I liked this book way more than I thought I would to begin with! I know I'm going to get a lot of grief about it but it reminded me so much on how I felt when I first started reading the Twilight Series (which I love....cue the pitch forks) and I began reading the book already having an emotional connection to it! Caitlin isn't the most likable protagonist to begin with. There were many times when I wanted to yell at her to get over herself. But then I decided to put myself in her shoes and try to understand her situation a wee bit more, and there were many times where I was able to empathize with her. Adrian on the other hand completely stole my heart, especially when I read that he is a Harry Potter fan like moi. My two favorite characters though have got to be Trish and Lucian; just keeping it real with those two that kept it real throughout the whole book. It would be very cool to see the book Caitlin wrote for Lucian become an actual book. Just a thought. I just need to know what happens next! Thumbs up.

Sven Test

You can find my review of Velvet on Reading with ABC's blog.

The very first thing I noticed of Velvet was the gorgeous cover! I haven’t read a vampire book since last year (literally) so I never requested this book but the cover was always so alluring and I wanted it. When I noticed Liza had it for review, my greedy hands wanted the book in a heartbeat. I have to say I was surprised with the story. I don’t think I was expecting everything that was going to happen and it took me by surprise.

Caitlin has just moved from New York to live with her aunt, uncle and cousin, the family she never really had contact with. I didn’t like how Caitlin would treat her family. She would be so rude and cold towards them because they never went to see her mom when she was sick or offered help. What Caitlin doesn’t know is that her mom and aunt had a big fall out, leading both sisters to not speak to each other and Caitlin without ever knowing her family until now. I understand why Caitlin felt the need to push them away but the way she would treat them didn’t sit well with me and it frustrated me to no end.

Finally, she gets to meet Adrian but in the most unexpected way. She was about to die when he rescued her but erased her memories and now she doesn’t remember him but she goes to school with him and both are drawn to each other. Not only that but Adrian has been assigned to protect her from the evil that’s about to come. I really liked Adrian a lot. He was a very sweet and caring guy right from the beginning, with the obvious cocky side but he really was great to read about. There are a lot of funny moments, lots of humor in the story that led me to keep reading and wanting to find out more about what was going to happen. You see, the demon that is after Caitlin is not because he finds her attractive or whatever excuse there normally is, but instead because it was just a coincidence that it happened to be her. She was at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I slowly started to like Caitlin again once she started to change her attitude towards her family. I also started to notice how strong this character really is. She took the new about Adrian being a vampire and an evil coming afterwards very well, in my opinion. She got to meet Adrian’s family, whom I didn’t really like except for the weird little brother, Lucian but oh my gosh! Lucian, as weird as he is, is the cutest character. I wanted to go inside the book and hug him tightly.

The romance in the story was very well-developed seeing as it wasn’t insta-love and it was first lust, then slowly turned to love. The reader gets to read about the growing feelings Caitlin has for Adrian, which in my opinion was great because as I mentioned above, these feelings were developed in a way that seemed real. But of course, this is a vampire story and real is far from it. Deeper into the story, very creepy things start happening that left me with my eyes wide open. I would even cringe at some of these scenes because they were too much for me but at the same time, I could not stop reading! The ending started to build up until it went out with a bang and I really want to read the next book because I desperately need to know what happens to a certain character of the story.

I really recommend this book to everyone that loves humor in their very dark and creepy stories, a well-developed story and characters that slowly start to creep into your hearts.

Irina 

It was pretty cheesy at the beginning but it sucks you in and you just want to keep reading it. No pun intended. Very enjoyable read.

Velvet

Reviews