Scan barcode
A review by ladytiara
Jessica Rules the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey
4.0
This is really more of a 3.5 rating, but I rounded up.
Jessica Rules the Dark Side is an entertaining quick read. It's the sequel to Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, which I haven't read, but I found it didn't really matter. The author does a good job of catching readers up with what's already happened, and I never felt lost.
Jessica is a vampire princess, newly married to her vampire prince Lucius and living in a castle in Romania. It's a major adjustment for an American teenager. The castle is a maze, she doesn't speak Romanian, and there are lots of nasty relatives who'd like to keep Lucius and Jessica (or Antanasia, as she's now known) from becoming king and queen. Jessica is doing her best to deal with the changes in her life, but it's not easy, and things get really bad when Lucius' uncle is murdered. Lucius is accused of the crime, and Jessica has to solve the mystery and keep Lucius from being executed, all while trying to maintain their positions as prince and princess.
I wasn't sure I was going to like Jessica very much at first. She seemed overly dependent on Lucius, and I wanted her to be stronger. But after Lucius is imprisoned and Jessica has to figure out how to save him, she grew on me, as she became a much stronger character. Even though she's way out of her depth in the treacherous world of vampire politics and missing Lucius terribly, she pulls herself together and moves forward with trying to clear him, with the help of her best friend Mindy and Lucius' cousin Rainiero, who has a past with Mindy.
This is a fast-paced entertaining read. The chapters alternate among four viewpoints: Jessica, Mindy, Lucius, and Rainiero. I'm not always a fan of multiple narrators, but in this book, it worked pretty well as you get a lot of different views of the central mystery and the possible bad guys. I found Mindy annoying at first, but her fierce loyalty to Jessica won me over by the end of the book. The mystery isn't terribly mysterious, but seeing it unfold from through multiple points of view made it more interesting.
I received an ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.
Jessica Rules the Dark Side is an entertaining quick read. It's the sequel to Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, which I haven't read, but I found it didn't really matter. The author does a good job of catching readers up with what's already happened, and I never felt lost.
Jessica is a vampire princess, newly married to her vampire prince Lucius and living in a castle in Romania. It's a major adjustment for an American teenager. The castle is a maze, she doesn't speak Romanian, and there are lots of nasty relatives who'd like to keep Lucius and Jessica (or Antanasia, as she's now known) from becoming king and queen. Jessica is doing her best to deal with the changes in her life, but it's not easy, and things get really bad when Lucius' uncle is murdered. Lucius is accused of the crime, and Jessica has to solve the mystery and keep Lucius from being executed, all while trying to maintain their positions as prince and princess.
I wasn't sure I was going to like Jessica very much at first. She seemed overly dependent on Lucius, and I wanted her to be stronger. But after Lucius is imprisoned and Jessica has to figure out how to save him, she grew on me, as she became a much stronger character. Even though she's way out of her depth in the treacherous world of vampire politics and missing Lucius terribly, she pulls herself together and moves forward with trying to clear him, with the help of her best friend Mindy and Lucius' cousin Rainiero, who has a past with Mindy.
This is a fast-paced entertaining read. The chapters alternate among four viewpoints: Jessica, Mindy, Lucius, and Rainiero. I'm not always a fan of multiple narrators, but in this book, it worked pretty well as you get a lot of different views of the central mystery and the possible bad guys. I found Mindy annoying at first, but her fierce loyalty to Jessica won me over by the end of the book. The mystery isn't terribly mysterious, but seeing it unfold from through multiple points of view made it more interesting.
I received an ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.