Nightfire by Alyson Burdette

Nightfire by Alyson Burdette


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Synopsis from Goodreads: When a murder shakes the small town of Peninsula, all eyes are on Olivia Townsend. She may look eighteen, but the townspeople can sense there’s something darker hiding behind her pretty eyes. Olivia knows the smart thing to do is to get out of town. Suspicious neighbors can only mean trouble for a vampire. But leaving becomes much more difficult when William, a mysterious man from her past, arrives. Finding out what brought him back is a temptation Olivia just can’t resist. William’s kindness and interest in Olivia only makes leaving harder. As she starts to fall for him, she’s forced to decide if sticking around is really worth the risk of being discovered. Of course, her mystery man has a secret of his own-and he’s not talking.


My Review: 
I recieved this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

In Nightfire, we meet Olivia, a lone vampire living in a small town. Shes been a vampire for over 100 years and has never met another of her kind. She lives a solitary existence, keeping to herself to avoid the suspicions of the towns human population. When a local murder occurs, all eyes turn to her.

William is new to town, housesitting for his Uncle who is away. Tagging along with him for the Summer are Williams girlfriend Jane and her brother/Williams best friend, Jesse.

Olivia meets the trio early on, and is immediately drawn to William, who reminds her of someone from her past. But William has a girlfriend and a secret, and hes not the only one...

First, the negatives.

Olivia obsessing over/proclaiming her love for William, and how she'll die if she cant be with him in every second sentence from the minute she met him. There was no build up to it at all. She saw him. She was in love, obsessed, the works. I hate instalove, so this was extremely frustrating for me. Im just not into reading 100 pages of the protagonist mushing and gushing all over someone she only met 5 minutes ago.

Certain scenes being totally unrealistic. Theres a scene very early on when Olivia magically finds where William is living just by walking around the streets. (come on, very few towns are so small that anyone knows every single house, and what cars the owners drive). And then shes busted spying through the window by Jesse and what does he do? Call the cops? no, he invites her in for lunch. And she accepts. I suppose Jesse and Olivia's behaviour in this scene can be explained by events that happen much later but why are Jane and William not a little freaked out that Jesse is just bringing random stalkers into their house? Do they really think he had a girlfriend he hadnt mentioned, even tho they'd all been at school together? Just all seemed a little too convenient.

Nothing really happens for more than the first half of the book. Its slooooooow. Nightfire is written from the first person perspective (Olivia) and honestly, i think it would have been so much better written in the third person perspective. If we'd been able to hear Jesse's and Williams point of view, i think the first half would have been much more interesting.

So for these reasons, this book started off as one star read. It was just the same old thing ive read a million times before.

HOWEVER! The hook for me, came pretty late in the book. About 70% in to be exact, when Olivia finds out that shes not just your run of the mill, average vampire. And from here on, i devoured the book in a matter of hours. WHY WHY WHY didnt she find out earlier? I didnt care to listen to her gush about William for half the book when we could have been finding out more about her true nature and the vampire world. And the little bit we did find out in the last 30% of the book is just not enough, i really wanted more. Will there be a sequel Ms Burdette?It was the last 30% that bumped my rating up from a 1 to 3 star read.

The main positive i wanted to mention, is how incredibly beautiful the authors writing is. I kept thinking time and time again that the descriptions in this book were almost poetic, and after looking on the authors blog, i realised she does in fact also write poetry. I really do look forward to reading more from this author. I think she could be something amazing with a more unique story line, and i hope that she continues on with the more interesting aspects of Nightfire, if she does choose to write a sequel.

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