Member Reviews
Cass M, Bookseller
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced copy of this book to read.
Kayla T, Librarian
I love vampires and this middle grade vampire book was perfect (though a bit darker than I originally expected). I can't wait to get a copy for my own shelves at home.
Come read about Eleonora ,who, after 100 years of being a vampire, is about to finally have her birthnight. Its the night where she tracks down and kills her first prey. Sounds easy. But, as it often does, nothing goes according to Leo's plan and she creates a bigger mess than she bargained for. Now she is faced with facing down a powerful Spector, the Orphanmaster. Not only that, but she still has to prove herself as a full fledged vampire.
Can she do it? Will she have to face her mess alone or will other ghosts rally to help her stop him? And will she finally prove herself to her mother? Or will she remain family failure forever?
I really love the cover of this one! It just screams spooky.
Lorryn W, Reviewer
This was a fun and cute middle grade. Just the right amount of spooky for anyone who gets easily afraid in my opinion. I would like to read more about Leo and any other cooky adventures she gets up too, she is only 111. She has a long undead life ahead of her. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started this but I was pleasantly surprised.
Leo is off to finally have her birthnight otherwise known as the night of her first kill. She has it all planned out which quickly does not work out for her. She ends up teaming up with a very unlikely friend to help stop the evil orphanmaster before he gets his full power and hurts any of the towns people. All in hopes of keeping her mess she has created from her parents and her nanny.
Jessica W, Reviewer
Honestly I considered DNFing this a few times while reading.
While it had the great components of a spooky middle-grade it just didn't FEEL right. I know that's a weird thing to base a book off of but I expect a certain excitement with spooky mid-grades and this just didn't deliver.
The pacing was a little all over the place. There was not enough world building for me and far too many things that just didn't make sense. I feel like this needed another good editing pass to really shine.
Jelke L, Reviewer
This book just wasn't it for me. I would like to say it just isn't good but all the other reviews I've seen for this book are positive so maybe it's just me. I thought this book was incredibly boring and it just moved too slow. I felt like nothing happened until the end and even that felt pretty anti-climactic to me. The characters were so incredibly flat and one note to me. The evil characters were such stereotypes and charicatures that it was just painful. The writing was a pain as well. I typically like a story with a narrarrator that has nothing to do with the plot but this just felt really obnoxious. The author also felt the need to write in all caps every other sentence and I mean I do that a lot too but I'm not writing a published novel. It annoyed me to no end. I typically don't make note of writing that often but this writing just annoyed me a bit too much. This book has some very basic vampire lore but there are some unique aspects to it and those took a bit too long to explain, in my opinion. I was so confused for a while. The ghost lore also wasn't explained as much as I would want to. So yeah, I had a horrible time reading this book and even considered DNF'ing it a couple of times but I just love vampires too much to do so.
Audra V, Librarian
I really wanted to love this book and can see where some middle grade readers would enjoy it… There’s a nice balance of fun and quirky moments with the overall spooky atmosphere and story. I had some difficulty with the pacing of the story, as well as finding most of the characters unlikeable (but perhaps this is deliberate?) Leo, though, was great — charming and whimsical and determined all at the same time.
