Ember Challice is less than a fortnight away from escaping the underworld sewer of Lowtown when she finds herself, and the people she loves, caught in the middle of a violent turf war between two gangs of ruthless criminals. Frustrated by the authority’s unwillingness to intervene, she turns to the one man who may be tough enough to help her – the mysterious stranger who comes to her café every few days to drink a single cup of coffee and then leaves without saying a word… the same stranger whose life she saved when she found him dying from a gunshot wound in the lobby of her tenement slum and who repaid the debt only hours later by murdering the thugs who attempted to kill her… the elusive, brooding enigma who is not only her new neighbour, but who also happens to be the most handsome vampire she has ever seen. But this vampire has enough problems of his own – he’s in the crosshairs of an assassin armed with lethal silver bullets and he’s also about to accept a deadly assignment that will take him into a complex web of dark witchcraft. More than that, although Ember doesn’t realise it, he and she have crossed paths before, and Ember’s mother and lover both died as a result. Can Ember trust him, or is she destined to become his next victim?
Haven is a spin-off from the bestselling Blackthorn series by Lindsay J. Pryor, a gritty chick-lit vampire noir that, despite its impressive world building and satisfyingly complicated heroine, is too formulaic for its own good. Pryor writes well and she knows how to spin an entertaining yarn but this is ultimately a case of pulp style over very little substance – the ‘is he a bad guy/is he a good guy/I need to stay away from him but he’s so darn chiselled I just can’t help myself’ vampire is straight out of central casting, the thugs are so comic-book evil that they quickly slide into pastiche, and an unnecessarily long midpoint interlude when the story suddenly turns into ’50 Shades of Nosferatu’ almost derails the novel entirely (but that’s only my opinion – I get the sense I’m probably not this book’s target audience). Fans of the Blackthorn series will no doubt love this, everyone else may find themselves momentarily intrigued but ultimately unsatisfied.
HAVEN / AUTHOR: LINDSAY J. PRYOR / PUBLISHER: PIATKUS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
