| "In The Forests Of The Night" Book Review |
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The first of so far, four books, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes breaks into the fantasy genre with this amazing book, “In The Forests Of The Night”. It’s the story of a vampire by the name of Risika who tells the story of how she became what she is and who made her this way. Springing to life the characters of Risika, Aubrey, Jager, Fala, Alex, and even a camoe by Jessica (Demon In My Veiw), this book is a superb start to her vampire tales. I myself first saw this book at one of those traveling book showcases at my school. The first thing that drew me to it was the cover. The picture of a menacinly smiling girl half clad as a tiger screams INTERESTING! Very well done art work by Eric Dinyer. The book itself is also an extremly nice piece of art itself. It flows together the times of now and 1701-04, pulling the reader from Risika’s present to her sad past. This is of course, because the book is all about Risika. Her emotions and ferocity for life and vengeance are beautifully displayed in every chapter and you can just feel her angst and strength as the book moves on. Amelia does such and amazing job at pulling the reader into the story that you can’t help but fall into the passengers seat on Risika’s emotional rollar coaster. You can even feel as Risika herself grows as a character from being fearful of Aubrey to being better then him and above him. Although we don’t get that much of a picture of Aubrey in this book, the picture most people are painted of him is a stuck up, sadistic meany. (lol) It’s hard not to hate him from Risika’s point of veiw and he is definately a character you love to hate. Then there is Jager and Fala. Again we don’t see much of either of them and they don’t really come into play until the end of the book. Even here they aren’t that magor of characters. But none the less you get the sense that Jager is a powerful vampire, reckloose at times, and extremly old. Fala on the other hand we only get a glimmer of as being snooty and even a bit of a coward when the going gets tough. Then there is Risika’s twin brother Alex. At first we see him as a young man torn between his faith in God and the powers that he has just begun to understand. *But as Rachel (Risika) is killed and turned into a vampire we discover that Alex is not as innocent as he once seemed. Instead he is a Triste witch.* With this all-star cast of complicated characters the world Amelia has created just loves to shoot out at you from the pages. We get to see the darker end of the rainbow as the angst of these beuatiful characters grows and becomes part of the reader themselves. An amazing first for Amelia and deffiantly not her last. -Sara Angeldust Also recommended: In The Forests Of The Night *Demon In My Veiw *Shattered Mirror *Midnight Predator NOTE*Click the image of the book to get back to the main page! |