Book review : Vampire Syndrome (Book 1) by Daven Anderson

Posted by: musenwrite on: September 9, 2013

• In: Art and Literature | Books and Literature
• 18 Comments

Hello friends,

Today I am going to write a review about an interesting title that I found from a popular publishing house PDMI Publishing LLC 

PDMI Publishing has a wide range of books for the readers across multiple genres and offers a great user experience as a personal publisher for authors wishing to explore the vibrant and creative world of writing and publishing.

So here is the book review – this book is for readers of the genre paranormal, supernatural, fantasy and Young Adult.

An engaging and fun read with “what happens next” moments and loads of twists, intrigue and action.

Book Title : VAMPIRE SYNDROME Book 1 (of the Vampire Syndrome Trilogy)

Author : Daven Anderson

Publisher : PDMI Publishing LLC, USA

Genre : Action, Supernatural, Young Adult

Purchase Links : Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Syndrome-Daven-Anderson/dp/0615756018

PDMI Publishing Store – http://mystore.pdmipublishing.com/fiction/12-vampire-syndrome-vampire-syndrome-trilogy-ya-version-by-daven-anderson.html

My review : 4.9 out of 5 stars. I recommend this book for your kindle , IPad, Android devices, and in print as well.

Review in detail:

I began reading Vampire Syndrome with an open mind the moment I skimmed through the first few pages. They glued me to the story. I decided then and there, that I was going to finish this book, as it became interesting the more I read on, and the story began to develop gradually.

Plot-  Vampire Syndrome by Daven Anderson is one of those Young Adult- paranormal genre books, which will keep you mesmerized through its lucid language and make you feel for the characters in action.

Vampire Syndrome – Book 1 is essentially an introduction to the main plot being woven with the lead and supporting vampire characters in action. The story begins with a rusty Wild West background of Colorado in the mid-nineteenth century, through the eyes of the female lead vampire Lilith, who is hunting  a vicious “Pure”.

The swift action and drama gradually leaps forward to the modern twenty-first century in the subsequent chapters. They unravel gripping twists and interesting subplots thereby extending a  good support to the main storyline, which is  – The eternal battle between human vampires (dhampirs) and the Pures (big bad non human vampires).

One of the lead characters in question is a special needs human vampire named Jack Wendell, who is the decisive factor in this war between the human vampires and the Pures. The author’s wise choice of such an unconventional lead vampiric character, is what makes the story all the more gripping and interesting to read on.

I don’t want to give away too much of the story here because it’s a great read. However, to give a hint to all fans of  Young Adult paranormal genres,  I’d recommend reading Book1 of the Vampire Syndrome series to find out two things

–Why Jack Wendell is so special and

–How he can change the fate of the human vampiric community in tandem with the normal human world.

Writing style and character development

The sentence construction is short, simple and picks up the reader’s interest from the very beginning. The dialogue is easy to follow, peppy and has a touch of regular day conversation, with occasional dark comedy and pun;

For example – in the interrogation room scene, where Venator Damien interrogates some teenage kid vampires with attitude, after their double date ends in a disaster and warns of an enormous impending catastrophe both for the vampires and normal humankind.

The name of the lead female protagonist is revealed gradually as the chapters unravel the story step by step. Cleverly done.

The complex plot of the story is expertly woven. The plot is well organized and mostly sticks to its path. The book reads like an action-animation fantasy, right out of a Japanese manga vampire series.

The author successfully delves deep into each character and gradually unravels their own stories which add an interesting twist to the plot; for example, the teenager with special needs named Jack Wendell who got bitten by a “foamer” and then ran away from the scene.

The author gradually shows with great care and expertise, the metamorphosis of Jack’s thought process and onset of the vampire syndrome – the churn of fear, excitement, elation and power, albeit with a slight touch of teenage innocence and childlike curiosities. The emotional impact and sympathy for this character is felt all the more, as the character himself tells his experience in the first person.

This reminds me to share with other readers that 99% of this novel is written in the voice of each character as the story proceeds. At the beginning of every chapter, the name of the character is mentioned, and the events unfold from their point of view. Therefore the author lets readers view the plot developments from a variety of angles essentially through the unique mindsets of each character who share their experience in a first person narrative.

However, the main plot veers away from its normal path at times, circling around additional snippets of a vampire’s usual life and this makes the reading a bit slower in the mid section of this book.

Maybe the author might want to create some sequels to the main plot, as the sub plots seem to be designed to further probe into lives and times of each character separately in probable future sequels? Also, the story seems to stretch a bit before converging to the final action sequences.

The author seems to have an interest in vintage and antique automobiles. This is visible when he often shares valuable information about luxury and exotic cars, upgraded to run on high-octane adventures. It is a feast for the eyes indeed, as the scenes of car chases and descriptions of the high-end cars (both modern as well as vintage ’60s or ’70s savvy luxury models) are mentioned in much detail.  Car lovers would love to read this book too.

The author has also done some good research on various dialects and accents of the English language that were widely prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century across various parts of North America.

Nevertheless, Book 1 of the Vampire Syndrome saga manages to hold its engaging and intriguing “what happens next” moments quite well in the succeeding chapters.

An additional uniqueness of this novel is that, it is written from the view-point of goodish vampires – the ones who don’t go out unnecessarily to hunt normal humans and they follow the rules of their own community. This means, they keep their kind under control to protect their own secretive society. Some parts of this novel also gave a feel of watching the popular paranormal action – fantasy movie series – Underworld.

All in all, I give this book 4.9 stars out of 5. I applaud Daven Anderson’s sincere efforts to write an engaging, action packed and fun to read novel. This book seems to be a good platform to look out for more creative and great stories from the author’s staple of Vampire Syndrome sequels.

Great writing Daven Anderson!

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