Book Review: Rowan, by Christina Channelle

This week, we're featuring an author who I've worked with before: Christina Channelle, author of the Blood Crave series. I reviewed the first book in the series, Dahlia, and the follow-up novella, Fallen Tears. The second official book in the series, Rowan, builds nicely on the ground established in the earlier books while introducing a new cast of characters that are much stronger than the ones we meet in the first. A combination of good characterization and mostly well handled pacing makes Rowan the best book of the series so far.

Rowan, one of the world's last remaining vampires (or lamia, as they're known in this book), awakens from a four year slumber when her need for blood grows too great to be controlled. Stumbling out into the streets of Fallon (a city partially controlled by fallen angels, or lapsus), she feeds off passing humans, only to stumble across a dead boy in an alley. Impulsively, she decides to turn the boy into a vampire to save his life--and we discover it's Sam, Dahlia's foster brother from the first book and one of my favorite characters in this series.

With her blood supply rapidly dwindling, Rowan seeks out Remy, the lapsus who she lived with until his mother was murdered. While the Remy of the Fallen Tears novella was young and slightly geeky, he's grown up a lot in the years since Rowan's last seen him (though his crush on her hasn't faded). Together, Sam, Rowan, and Remy decide to seek out the lapsus who murdered Remy's mother. But a mysterious new power stalks the streets of Fallon--a centuries old entity who preys on supernatural creatures to extend its own life.

 Rowan's a much more proactive heroine than Dahlia, but little details like her fear of the dark (and her struggle to hide it from Sam, who she looks upon as her student in all things vampire) keep her feeling human and vulnerable. Her voice has a lot of attitude, but it's easy to see that it's mostly a front she puts up to hide her personal self-doubt. I also like the way her relationship with Remy develops. He may not be Rowan's first love, but the two do have history together. Most importantly, they relate to each other as equals. Their banter and their friendship make their relationship equally entertaining and real.

One of my big critiques of Dahlia was that I felt not enough was happening. There's a lot more stuff going on in Rowan, and the narrative follows a much more traditional pattern of action. Villains new and old pop up to threaten the main characters. My one complaint with the pacing is that there's a slice of exposition inserting a break between a giant twist scene and the book's emotional climax (which, no spoilers, made my heart sink in my chest). While it is a set-up for the next book in the series, it holds readers' attentions on its own.

I would have also liked to see more development of the world. The city of Fallon feels somewhat generic--there's no feelings of local culture, or real landmarks, and there's nothing visual that sets it apart from any other city in the world. That makes the story feel small, isolated--like nothing exists beyond the lives of the main characters. Worldbuilding is key to giving a story the proper scope.

Faster pacing, stronger character voice, and increased emotional draw make Rowan a much stronger installment in this series. My rating? For YA paranormal romance, four stars. For a novel, four stars.

You can purchase Rowan here.

Book Review: Fallen Tears (A Blood Crave Novella), by Christina Channelle

So this week, we're returning to the Blood Crave series with Fallen Tears, a novella by Christina Channelle.  Though originally planned for a release as part of the next book in the series, Fallen Tears stands very well on its own. It deepens and enriches the world of the series, raises my anticipation for the next book, and creates a new romance that I can't wait to read more about.

Different hot chick on the cover. 

In the first entry of the series, Dahlia, we learned about the eternal conflict between the lamia and the lapsus (vampires and fallen angles). Making up new names for traditional supernatural creatures has always been a pet peeve of mine, but it's a pet peeve the main character in Fallen Tears shares with me. We first meet Rowan as a twelve-year-old runaway who meets a mysterious man while she's searching for shelter. He jokes with her and consoles her, eventually taking her in. Sure, he's a vampire, and as we learned in the last book, there's only two vampires left after the fallen angels hunted 'em all down. I thought they'd be a good deal more dangerous--but I was pleasantly surprised.

This vampire, Kaji, has a sweet side. He confesses to Rowan that he's lost touch with his humanity, and she offers to teach him about being human in exchange for food. This supposed deadly killer takes her in as his ward. Since I'd had the impression that the two surviving vampires were bad guys, it'll be really interesting to see how this works out in the next book. Will Dahlia learn that these supposed man-eaters are humanitarians in multiple senses? Suspense! Also, will Rowan end up with Kaji? Don't worry, it's not gross, she's nineteen for the majority of the story. Plus, she also gets turned into a vampire, so it's all good.

You see, one of these fallen angels decides to murder Rowan for associating with vampires and Kaji turns her to save her life. He then drops her off with a family of fallen angels/witches who take care of her as she acclimates to her new state. Both the female witches seemed a little one dimensional to me, although I loved the character of Remy, the sole male witch in the family, who struggles with his attraction to Rowan as he helps her through the turmoil of becoming a vampire. Rowan's a lot grittier a character than Dahlia, and her attitude and determination make her worth rooting for.

I do wish the story arch was a little more complete. Though it builds to a climax, few of my burning questions were answered. It's obvious that Fallen Tears is part of a larger work, and the characters could have used a few more personal flaws. Nevertheless, it did the job of making me care about the characters, and that in itself is enough to make me happy. I can't wait for the next entry in this series.

I would also like to see a female protagonist in this series who wasn't incredibly hot, but that's a genre thing.

As a YA paranormal romance, four and a half stars out of five. As a novella, three and a half.

You can purchase Fallen Tears here

Book Review: Dahlia (Blood Crave series), by Christina Channelle

            Welcome back to the wonderful world of YA paranormal romance—the genre that answers the question “What if supernatural creatures walked among us?” with “They’d be eighteen, drop-dead gorgeous, and totally willing to pork the outcast girl who’s always thought she was ‘different’.” This week’s book, Dahlia, is the first in the Blood Crave Series, by author Christina Channelle (who has an absolutely wonderful name). While Dahlia introduces a compelling mystery and quite a few interesting characters, its focus on internal monologue and unoriginal romance left me feeling less than amazed.

Yet another professional cover! Wonderful!

            Dahlia, the title character, has always known she’s different. She’s grown up in foster homes and orphanages, and only now has found some stability in the home of the Cahill family. Despite being annoyed by the antics of her foster brother, Sam, Dahlia knows he’s her first real friend in years. Their cute, brother-sister interaction is one of my favorite parts of the book. Dahlia’s just about to start at Sam’s high school—but something’s up. Two mysterious men are living in the forest and following her around. Dahlia thinks back to walking into rooms covered in blood as a child. It creates a creepy, mysterious vibe that permeates the start of the book.

            I got a little wary when we approached Dahlia’s first day at school—it seems every YA book requires a scene where the character goes to a new school and describes every single class, teacher, and student. Thankfully, Channelle doesn’t do this. There is the obligatory lunchroom scene where she meets the obligatory Group of Friends, but that turns out to be necessary to the story. Best of all, she doesn’t describe how every clique sits at its own table.

            The story runs into a few pacing problems in the middle. There’s a lot of internal monologue—Dahlia thinking to herself. It can get pretty repetitive, what with her telling herself over and over that what’s happening to her shouldn’t be possible, and that she feels like she’s different than everyone else, and that she hungers for blood. Saying something ten times does not make the emotion you’re trying to convey ten times as strong.

            There also isn’t a strong sense of direction. In one of my favorite YA paranormal romances, City of Bones, the heroine journeys to the aforementioned City to meet a group of seers who find the name Magnus Bane imprinted on her subconscious. Bane turns out to be a notorious warlock, so the heroine and her friends have to crash a party he’s throwing to interrogate him. While leaving the party, one of her friends is abducted by vampires, so heroine + love interest have to go rescue him . . .  One event causes another distinct event. This events allow the characters to explore the world while simultaneously developing the plot and deepening the sense of danger.

             Dahlia may learn secrets about herself and fall in love, but we never get the feeling the plot is going somewhere. She goes to school and to parties, but these events only serve as backdrops. As much as I liked her character at the beginning, she lacks a concrete goal. The romance also didn’t really grab me—there wasn’t much to differentiate it from any of the hundreds of other romances I’ve read about. Despite Dahlia thinking at one point that ‘what she and [love interest] had was complicated’, it actually isn’t that complicated. He’s got a stereotypical godlike physique and special green eyes. She’s attracted to him even when he’s practically mugging her in a park. He’s got big secrets he’s hiding from her. At some point, these secrets make Dahlia angry, which happens in every romantic story written ever.

            The strengths of Dahlia lie primarily in the supporting characters. Sam, Dahlia’s goofy-yet-supportive foster brother manages to be genuinely pleasant while at the same time having a bit of an edge as he tries to encourage Dahlia to break out of her shell. And the mysterious Ava kept me reading just to find out what her motives were. As a first novel, it’s honestly not bad. Channelle has a talent for creating interesting characters. If the plot of future novels can build a little more tension, she might be a writer to watch.

            Highs: Establishing characters. I found it pretty easy to sympathize with Dahlia from the start. Creepiness. The mentions of her walking into a room covered in blood sent shivers up my spine. The climax. It’s clear cut and feels very dangerous.

            Lows: The slow beginning. It takes ten paragraphs to fit in the first three lines of dialogue. The magic scheme. I found it kind of hard to take seriously. There’s only so many supernatural things you can mix together and this story reeks of Our Vampires Are Different. When the magical history of the universe is explained, we get it once without character names and directly afterwards with the character names added. One of those could be cut.

            My rating? For YA paranormal romance, four stars. For a novel, three.

You can download Dahlia here