The Darkangel, a vampire of astounding beauty and youth, can only summon his full power when he finds his 14th and final bride. But for Aeriel, whom he kidnaps to serve his brides, there is something about him - something beyond his obvious evil - that makes her want to save him rather than destroy him.
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This is a fairytale in the truest sense of the word. However, it's main 'un'fairytale-like quality is that one of the two main characters is a vampire. The other is a girl who falls for him but don't make the mistake of thinking it's going to be an angsty teenage fantasy the likes of which Ms Meyer offers because it's not. You'll be disappointed if that's what you're after. The cover makes it look like any other ten-a-penny vampire fantasy but it couldn't be more different if it tried.
This was first published in 1982 and it feels a bit dated now. Not because of the writing style and definitely not because of the subject, but by association. Because other - more recent- novels in this genre are edgy and fasionable with urban settings and situations and they use language that you'll come across every day in life, Darkangel just seems to miss the mark if you're more used to the modern vampire romance.
It was republished in 2007, no doubt to soak up some of the popularity that vampire fiction has generated in recent years, and there's nothing wrong with that. Especially since Darkangel was actually a forerunner of all those other urban vamps. But it does tread a fine line. It's counting on the purchasers of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries and House of Night books to also show interest in this one and there's every chance they will, (afterall, I did), but I want to add a word of caution too...
It's not what we've come to expect from vamp literature. It's not worse though....it's just different. Go into it expecting a fairytale and enjoy the weirdness of it all and it's a good story. From what I hear it gets better in the next two books in the trilogy, but I can't comment on that because I haven't read those. Read it for what it is, a cutting edge (at the time) dark fairytale. Like all good fairytales it has a bit of spook in it and there's a couple of bits where it gets scary and you'll hope it turns out well but it's not 'edge of your seat' type stuff and neither is it a 'will they, won't they' romance, it's just not that kind of book. I don't have a mad hunger to find out what happens next, if I'm honest, so I'm still not sure if I'll try the follow on books but if you're in the mood for a nice traditional fairytale with a nice untraditonal vampire then this might be the book for you.
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