Review: Katrina, The Beginning by Elizabeth Loraine

Title: Katrina, The Beginning
Author: Elizabeth Loraine
Series: Royal Blood Chronicles #1
Pages: 338 (Paperback)
(Goodreads)

Release Date: August 19th 2010

Source: Received for review from the publicist

Summary:

The High Regent has called members of each royal vampire family to council. Katrina Von Dracek wonders what this will mean to her.


Does the council really intend to start a new covern in the Americans or is there something else?


All Katrina's vampire senses tell her evil is around them and that she will be the one called upon to save them all.

Review:

I was struck with how fast Katrina, The Beginning’s pace was; perhaps, a tad too fast at first. It was practically like being ambushed with too much interesting information that when it finally ended, you’d feel lost as if you have to read it again.

On Plot:

One thing I liked in this book aside from the pace was that there were so many important and interesting events that happened all throughout the book- some parts dragged with girly conversations between Katrina and her girlfriends, but the others are important to the story’s plot. I liked that these parts left me absorbed into the book, although in parts like these, I wished that the plot would slow down a little so as I could absorb the details (which I noticed was lacking) and get a good grip to what was already happening. I was also surprised by how quickly the romance bloomed; I found it interesting, though I was also worried about how Ms. Lorraine was then going to pull off the rest of the story, because we all know that romance is an important factor in Young Adult Supernatural novels. But Ms. Lorraine didn’t disappoint. Like I said, there were so many important and interesting events that happened in this book. I was surprised by how these events flowed by themselves. It left me wondering where they came from – not because they seemed force, but because they came out almost naturally. This book will really leave you constantly guessing what would happen next.

On Characters:

I don’t know why, but somehow, Katrina reminded me of Katsa from Graceling. They really don’t have any similarities aside from being strong characters, but Katrina gave off Katsa vibes… or maybe it was just me. Aside from being a talented fighter, Katrina also has a girly side to her that Katsa was missing. Katrina has girlfriends whom she gossips to about boys and pretty clothes. I found this slightly annoying, to be honest. The parts where she was having girly conversation with her girlfriends seemed like fillers. There were also parts where the minor characters seemed to exist only to make a story – like they were there because it would be convenient to have them there. I found it hard to connect with the characters. In fact, the only character I liked was Quinn…

All in all, Katrina, The Beginning was a nice enough read. It has a great potential and I recommend this to all who liked Firelight by Sophie Jordan and Halo by Alexandra Adornetto.

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Barnes & Noble

Watch the Trailer:

_________________________________________

About the Author:

Hmmm. I've always been creative, art, music, decorating; all life long passions. I married my high school sweetheart a talented General Building Contractor and raised a son and a daughter who are very 
 creative in their own rights. I've worked in the business world, became a decorative painter and longed for 
 an outlet for my other artistic talents.

I have been a lifelong fiction fan, and for years I knew I was supposed to write a book; I just didn't know about what. I did, however, envision characters that were strong , independent young women as heroines.

Since I was very young I have been fascinated by vampires from Dracula to the present day. Although I love all the books where the settings are high schools and the characters are young, I always wanted to 
 know more. What had they done in the centuries before? Where had they been? What had they seen
 and lived? I wanted to fill in their time line, their history. From that curiosity, those questions, is where
 these books come from. These long lived vampires have hundreds of years of history and I plan to
 chronicle that. So, start here with Katrina, enjoy the vampire past and look forward to the vampire future.

Fangfully,

E. Loraine

Visit the Author: Website

Visit the Royal Blood Chronicles website

Review: Katrina, The Beginning by Elizabeth Loraine