Book Review: Immortalis Carpe Noctem by Katie Salidas

Immortalis : Carpe Noctem Book 1

Author: Katie Salidas
Paperback: 346 pages
Publisher: Rising Sign Books; 1st edition (March 2, 2010)

Ratings:

*see below*

My thoughts:

This book is hard to rate. As you can see from this blog, I rarely rate a book 5-star  unless I absolutely loved the book. I wanted to give this a 5-star rating because I truly enjoyed, or even maybe loved it. However, it's not the same level as my love for Vampire Academy and other books in the 5 stars category. So how do I rate this book? Let me try.

What I loved in this book was the story of a newborn vampire. A lot of vampire books out there goes straight to the "after" stage but rarely we get to read stories of a newborn vampire. Saying goodbye to your life, friends, family wasn't easy. And wanting to be a good vampire wasn't easy as well. When Alyssa learned that she's been turned into a vampire, she could not decide whether she should be thankful to Lysander for saving her from mortal death or she should hate Lysander because she didn't want to be a killer (vampires here kill for blood). She didn't want this but she had no choice. Lysander threatens to kill her if she's not happy with her new life. So there's no choice but to accept her newfound immortality. She realized then that she didn't want to die and she could be a good vampire. Alyssa decided to only kill bad guys - like murderers, rapists, and killers.  This was also her way of getting back to those two rapists who had brutally attacked and stabbed her. Alyssa is an interesting character, I feel her pain of losing her life and her friends for this immortality. As for Lysander! Wow! OH MY! He reminds me of Quinn, the ancient vampire in the Riley Jenson Guardian series. I realized I have this thing for ancient vamps! 

I also love how the author used Greek myths for the Immortalis series. I love Greek myths ever since I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology book. They're fun to read and that's the book I can read every day and still love it.  Now, back to the book, it was said there that vampires came from the Keres who mated with a mortal, creating the first vampire ever to walk the earth. The author did great in researching her materials for her series.

Now, what I didn't like was the ending of the book. This is a series so I expected a lot of OMG moments. But no - nothing like that. It was good but I wasn't quite satisfied with it.  Overall, it was a fantastic read,  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ for the storyline, characters and settings but only ★ ★ ★ ★ for the writing style and the end of the book.

About the book:

Explore the emotional upheaval that is the transformation from human to vampire.

Bleeding to death after brutal mugging on the campus of UNLV, Twenty-five year old Alyssa, is rescued by the cold and aloof, vampire, Lysander. Taking pity on her, he shares the gift-and curse-of immortality. She awakens as a vampire and is soon devastated by harsh realities of her new way of life: An unyielding thirst for blood as well as the loss of her friends, her independence, and her humanity.

As if having her humanity stripped away was not enough to make life interesting, Alyssa finds out her "turning", did not go unnoticed by the rest of undead society. Old enemies; an ancient sect of vampire hunters, known as the Acta Sanctorum, as well as a powerful Vampire mistress, each set plans in motion to destroy both Alyssa and Lysander.

Only by accepting her new-found immortality, seizing the night, will Alyssa hope to survive. She and Lysander must fight together against two sets of enemies bent on destroying them both. - Goodreads


About the author:

The youngest of four children, Katie has always had a desire to entertain. Since, early childhood, she's dreamed fantastical characters and scribbled them into pages of various journals and notebooks. Taking an interest in vampires, she devoured every book, featuring those blood sucking creatures, in any genre she could find. It was only natural that a love of reading vampire stories, turned into a love to write them. Katie is also a Las Vegas native, having grown up in the famed City of Sin. She loves to feature it as a recurring setting for many of her stories. - Amazon







Note: I received a review copy of this book free from the author, Katie Salidas. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.