So I took a chance and read a book by a new author who's taking her own little dip into the vampire young adult genre...

Evernight by Claudia Gray - When Bianca is forced to attend the prestigious, yet eerily gothic, Evernight Academy she recognizes that something is seriously wrong at the school. Stuck there since both her mother and father are teachers at the school Bianca, painfully shy to the point of anxiety attacks, hates every moment - until, during a weak runaway attempt, she meets the handsome Lucas Ross. The two have an instant connection and chemistry, emphasized by Lucas' strangely overprotective tendencies towards Bianca. But things are not really what they seem at Everynight - it turns out to be a school, and safe haven, for vampires. As certain events unfold, Bianca discovers the lengths she's willing to go to be with Lucas and make sure their love survives.... Where to start? This was an interesting read, but I felt that Gray could've taken it to the next level and didn't. The worst part of the story wasa how rushed the plot felt, for example Lucas and Bianca had great instant chemistry and connection almost immediately, but for some reason Gray just decided to go from that to instant, head over heels love without really having the characters discover each other beyond a superficial level. The unfortunate thing about that is she had the opportunity to write a really great romance, one that comes with all the confusion, misunderstandings, and heartache that usually precedes a satisfying happy ending but not of that was present in the novel. The one thing I did like was that (SPOILER) Gray made Bianca the vampire here, not the boy. Yet again, however, there was no indication that Bianca was a vampire until half-way through the book, which I found really unusual since the story is told from her perspective. A revelation like that would've been more appropriate from third party perspective but not in this case. I also thought Lucas' reaction to the new was unusual considering his role in the book. Gray also ripped off the Stephenie Meyer tool of making the prologue the ending, and then having the first chapter go back to earlier events. All in all, it was an ok read, one that really would've benefitted from more plot development since everything was rushed, not well explained, and the ending was a bit anticlimactic - seriously could've had anywhere from 100 - 150 extra pages with no lag in the story. I'll probably pick up the second book because I'm curious to see what happens to Bianca and Lucas next, and because Evernight felt like the very brief introduction to what will hopefully be a more rich, and complex story (but I won't be holding my breath in hopes that the Evernight series becomes a particular favorite of mine).

*** 3 stars (barely...)

Series so far includes:
1. Evernight
2. Stargazer