Amber Fang #1: The Hunted by Arthur Slade
Amber Tyrell enjoys life’s simple pleasures. A perfect evening for her includes a good book, a glass of wine and, of course, a great meal, preferably straight from the jugular. Raised to eat ethically, Amber dines only on delicious cold-blooded killers. But confirming that her chosen victims deserve to die takes time. And patience. So it’s a good thing Amber is studying to be a librarian. Her extraordinary research skills help her hunt down her prey, seek out other vampires and stay on the trail of her mother, who has been missing for over two years now. But one day while Amber is stalking a rather tasty-looking murderer, things go horribly wrong. Amber has walked into a trap. The hunter becomes the hunted. Now on the run, Amber receives the perfect job offer out of the blue. Someone wants to pay her to kill (and eat) the world’s worst criminals. It sounds too good to be true.
I’ve been on a kick lately of wanting to support Indie authors and, more specifically, Canadian authors so I logged onto Netgalley last week to see what was available. When I saw that British Columbian publishing house Orca Books was on there, I knew I wanted to read one of their releases. Amber Fang caught my eye because I’ve been a fan of vampire novels since before I was 10. I used to sneak my mother’s copies of Anne Rice novels into my room and read them after she’d gone to bed.
This was a pretty straight forward read. The plot moved quickly so I found there wasn’t too much time to get invested in the characters. For a young adult novel it makes sense, as the author needs to keep the young reader’s attention, but I would’ve liked to have had more insight into the main character as well as the reoccurring side characters she interacted with.
As quickly as the plot moved I didn’t find much substance until the second half of the book. It was at this point the reader is given more information about the League and invited to participate in the story. The story picked up and gained excitement which had me staying and reading instead of doing my Saturday morning errands.
Overall I did find Amber Fang an enjoyable quick read, and I may take a look at the next 2 books in the series.
3/5
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review