Today I am going to write a review on the book I just finished. I had planned to finish it earlier, but life got in the way. Luckily? today was full of doctor’s appointments, so got the little bit left I had to read done.
I was gifted this book by the author in order to review it.
My review of Birth of a Vixen by Colleen Tews
Let me start off by saying this is definitely not the kind of book I’d ever pick up on my own accord. I tend to avoid a lot of the paranormal work regarding shifters and vampires especially since so much of it is laced with sex scenes and that is not my taste. Also, a lot of it is “romance” driven, which is my least favorite genre. So, picking this up…I was a bit skeptical, but I was honestly pleased.
The first few chapters moved by extremely quickly. I felt like my head was spinning jumping from scene to scene and I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I had trouble keeping track of the characters and getting to know any of them, even the main character. There was a lot of good action in those chapters though, so it did enough to keep my attention. But after those first few chapters, the pacing slowed to a good pace. From that point on, it stayed at that pace, too. I felt overall the pacing was well done and easy to follow, despite the rough intro.
I absolutely enjoyed her writing style. It was descriptive and easy to read. Her choice of words and sentence structure are fluid. I was impressed right off the bat with her style of writing and it made the book thoroughly enjoyable. There were some somewhat descriptive sex scenes that I could have done without, and admittedly, I skimmed them, but they were also nowhere near as deep or detailed as others in similar genres. They also weren’t particularly forced into the story and flowed with the natural state of events. The action scenes were written decently and it was pretty easy to get a grasp of what was happening and imagine it in your head. The biggest flaw I saw is that sometimes the transitions were a bit weak between scenes, but this was mostly something that pertained to the first part of the book and not as a whole. They got stronger as the story progressed.
I was also admittedly concerned with how quickly “Veronica’s” relationship with Lucian developed. I feel I may have missed something about charm or aura there, but even after they first met, it was like they had been lovers for a long time. I came to accept their relationship without too much weirdness pretty easily though, and I say that’s thanks to the strong writing. Other character relationships had more build to them. There was a wide variety of characters that we met, and most we only got to see the “tip of the iceberg” as to just who they are and what they are like. It’s all told from Veronica’s POV though, so that’s to be expected. I imagine some of them will come into play more in sequels. I am still a bit confused with the who thing with Thais, but I know there’s only part of the story there. As Veronica starts to uncover it, I feel the reader will, too. It leaves me questioning, but not in an unsatisfying way.
There was one rather abrupt scene change near the end that caught me off guard. Prior to the final battle, I believed they were in Seattle/Kent area of Washington state. One of the pivotal scenes leading up to it takes place in Kent, Ohio. Ohio was mentioned before hand, but I wasn’t sure how Veronica suddenly got there. I’m still not really sure if the final battle was in Washington or Ohio, but it really didn’t detract much from the story as the location at that point didn’t matter. It just left me a bit confused.
Overall, I recommend this book to read. If you are big into the paranormal or supernatural, especially vampires, it’s a great story. It’s well written, mostly well paced, with strong characters and a lot of growth from our narrator/heroine.
