Title: Stealing Time
Author: Elisa Paige
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: January 31, 2011
Size: 544 KB, 101,700 words
My Copy: NetGalley
It wasn’t that she wanted to live forever. She just didn’t want to die.
When artist James Wesley realizes Evie Reed is dying, he is so moved by the beautiful reporter’s determination to live that he makes her immortal-a vampire, like him. She’s the woman he’s been waiting over 150 years for. Though initially shocked by the change, Evie quickly embraces her second chance at life, and love.
Just as James and Evie begin to define eternity together, a zealot breaks an ancient treaty, threatening a peace between humans and vampires that has stood for a thousand years. And when he focuses his hatred on Evie, the immortal lovers find themselves swept up in a deadly supernatural war…
The premise of this book is interesting, the characters are lovable but the plot has many gaps and is hard to follow. That’s not to say that this book isn’t worth your time. It’s a nice, leisurely read with a cute love story. I just felt that the overall end goal wasn’t obvious. The supernatural war that’s mentioned in the synopsis was an afterthought and didn’t really make an appearance until the end.
Evie’s background story is a sad one; she’s young, beautiful and dying. Luckily for her, she has a vampire guardian angel (so to speak) watching over her. After receiving her final prognosis, Evie gets into a fatal car crash while en-route from her doctor’s office. Talk about bad luck! That is until James swoops in and turns her dying mortal body into a vampire. For me, this was a great start to the novel. Having personally experienced cancer struggles with loved ones I rather enjoyed exploring this possibility. It added a dose of reality to Elisa Paige’s fictional world. The only downside was that all of this occurred within the first chapter. I would have liked to have learnt more about Evie and her struggle before she was turned.
Evie awakens to her new life in James’ house. She accepts her fate way too quickly in my opinion. There was little to no transition from her being terminally ill, to dying, to becoming a vampire. That’s not including the evolution of Evie and James’ romantic relationship. There were a few obstacles but they become immortal life-long companions in the blink of an eye. Evie resisted at first, but it wasn’t much of a fight. They quickly became each others’ everything. Love at first sight has its merits but in this case it wasn’t fitting. I found it hard to believe that someone in Evie’s position would just embrace her new existence so readily. She’s been through hell and then some only to do a 180 and for everything to magically become hunky dory.
The main part of this book revolves around Evie and James’ love story. They bask in each others company and try to learn every minute detail about the other. One night, during a romantic stroll through Central Park, they encounter another vampire which kick starts their adventure. However, it wasn’t immediately evident what the danger was. In fact, it seemed like the bad guys were thrown in as an afterthought. None of the confrontations seemed connected until near the end when the plot finally comes to light. My impression of this novel went something like this: happy lovey dovey couple, couple kicks random vamp’s ass, repeat. There weren’t any obvious connections between the main characters and the main plot. Everything snowballs from here, all of a sudden James has an evil uncle who’s trying to put an end to a centuries old treaty. Heuh?
Stealing Time is primarily a romance novel with vampires. I’m not sure if that was the author’s intent or if the supernatural war was supposed to take center stage. This novel seemed like it was meant to be a mix of the two but failed to achieve that balance. The ending left me with more questions than answers and wondering what the main goal of the book was. The novel itself isn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I was expecting.
| Author’s Website Read Chapter 1 |
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This book counts towards my goals in Parajunkee’s View’s 2011 Vampire Challenge and Book Chick City’s Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge.
About the Blogger
I review Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance books with a focus all things werewolf. Based out of Ottawa, Canada
Owner, designer and main blogger behind Rabid Reads. Avid book reader, snowboard bunny, video gamer and Supernatural fan. I love all things paranormal, werewolves especially. Oh, and I’m Canadian, eh!
Hmmmm… It does sound like it would be a cute book/ deliver on the romance, but holes in the plot? I don’t know if I would have enough patience to deal with them. I’ll add it to my “check this out at the library before I buy it pile”… Thanks for the great review!
🙂
You are right. The premise of this book does look interesting! While I enjoy a little romance sprinkled into a novel, I never want kissing to become the primary focus of the story. Learning that there “weren’t any obvious connections between the main characters and the main plot?” Well, that makes this a book I’m definitely going to completely avoid. Bleh! I’ve already read two completely horrid books this week and don’t think I could endure another awful one; not for a long while.
~ Tami
http://VampireReview.blogspot.com
Such an interesting concept. It’s too bad the plot didn’t totally capture you. It’s so hard to get the combination of good characters, good romance, and good plot right. It seems like at least one is usually lacking.
I absolutely disagree. I have read Stealing Time and I couldn’t have loved it more. It is a paranormal romance/urban fantasy and reads exactly like that. While I respect your review commentary, I feel that you are off base. You got caught up on the fact that the heroine was a cancer survivor and were disappointed not to learn more about that, however, that was not the premise of the book anyway. It was simply explaining why she had given up on life and why the “vampire”ism gave her a new lease. Everyone is entitled to their opionion, but don’t turn away potential readers because it didn’t match your preconceived notions. One must never read a book with anything other than an open mind to reap the full benefits.
@Avery – It is a cute book. It just doesn’t really go anywhere…
@Tami Jackson – This book is definitely misleading. The author seemed to want to write a romance and action novel. I think she should have picked one out of the two.
@Alison – It is very hard to find a book that has a good balance of everything.
@Kelly – To each their own! Someone has to love this book, unfortunately I’m not one of them but I do see your point.