Ratings4
Average rating3.3
I didn't quite enjoy this one as much as the first. Without the world and relationship building, I just didn't care quite so much about these characters.
The incorporation of a MF relationship and sex, as well as a lot of talk between Nino and Haru about having children, uninterested me. The villain and his island could have also been explored a lot more in the text instead of spending so much time building Cellina and Giovanni's relationship. That should have been done in their own book, targeted towards people who are more interested in MF. Granted this book is marked as “queer” rather than MM but the first book was only MM so I think the carryover of those readers to here is going to be your target audience.
I enjoy the world that Nikole has written but I do have some issues with her writing - the pacing is very off but also there are a lot of issues in the dialogue. You have these 100+ year old vampires that speak multiple languages but it seems their grasp on English is tenuous; they speak very formally like a textbook (like saying “the male” to refer to someone when they're just talking amongst themselves) so a lot of the dialogue is a bit odd and didn't flow in a realistic way. No friends speak to each other like that in any language. It's just all very stiff and uncomfortable - it takes you out of the book.
Overall, I do really enjoy Haru and Nino's story and world but I don't have high hopes for the next installment.