The Tale of the Vampire Bride (Vampire Bride, #1)

by Rhiannon Frater

[Angie]

Told in a series of journal entries, The Tale of the Vampire Bride is the dark and frustrating story of Lady Glynis who becomes Count Dracula's newest bride. I thought I was going to really like it in the beginning, since Glynis is not ladylike at all. Her parents are having trouble marrying her off until a foreign count shows interest in her. But upon arriving at his castle, they know something is very off about the count. Dracula isn't about to let Glynis go, and uses his power to dispose of her family and trap her there with him and his three other brides. Glynis vows to escape even if it kills her.

The Tale of the Vampire Bride quickly lost my interest. The first half is incredibly violent and repetitive as Dracula abuses Glynis and forces her to become a vampire. Glynis also lost that spunk I loved (understandably so, given the situation), but she turned into this whiny child. She literally just stamped her foot and yelled "I hate you!" all the time. Wow, you tell him. She also said she was going to refuse to feed, but that she's hungry so she's going to feed, but after that she's refusing to feed. Um, what?! I really couldn't bring myself to care for her, because she was just so dang annoying!

Speaking of annoying, Dracula's other brides are infuriatingly dull! Of course, they love being vampires and love their "husband" and everything is so great and awesome! And they simply can't understand why Glynis is upset after he kidnapped her, murdered her family, killed her, raped her, and beat her. Whenever Glynis was crying or said she wanted to leave, they were all like "I don't get it." Not even joking. Like, is there anything going on in those brains of theirs? Obviously not. I expected them to be irritated with their new "sister" or jealous or resentful or something; not complete airheads.

I started to regain my interest in the second half though, since this is where Glynis and Dracula travel to Buda, where the blurb promises romance. Well, no. Unless you consider Glynis proclaiming her undying love to a complete stranger after five minutes a romance. She seriously meets this guy and is immediately in love, and she doesn't even learn his name until later. But she must be with him forever! And he must be with her forever! And then...they have like ten pages together, so I wasn't sold on this at all. Maybe that's how romance is developed in Gothic Horror. I don't know. If it is, then it's not for me.

But back to the characters of The Tale of the Vampire Bride. I liked how in the beginning, it was clear that Count Dracula was not the good guy. Vampires in this are dark and evil. They do not sparkle. They don't even smile. They have evil grins. But then Dracula changes and I did not believe these changes at all. They were so out of nowhere and out of character. I was like, what the heck just happened?! It was like he went from one extreme to the other.

The ending of The Tale of the Vampire Bride did get a bit exciting, even though it's back to the castle with the mindless wives and more "I hate you"-ing. Glynis finally takes action, but then...Well, it's like Horror Movie 101. The undead don't die that easily, and yet she doesn't do something that needs to be done and it ends. But it's obviously not the end because of reasons. *eye roll*

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.