Review: Everdark by Elle Jasper

Everdark by Elle Jasper
Series: Dark Ink Chronicles #2
Published by Signet
Published on: June 7th 2011
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Source: Borrowed

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When Savannah tattoo artists Riley Poe is ambushed by an undead enemy, she inherits some of the traits of her attackers-and a telepathic link with a rampaging vampire. Now, she's experiencing murder after murder through the victims' eyes. And her new powers will not be enough to stop the horror-or the unending slaughter...

Everdark picks up speed at an amazing rate.    What begins as an extended stay on an island to recover from last book’s happenings snowballs quickly into another vampire scenario fraught with much danger.

Riley Poe intensifies the difficulty of comprehending this narrative significantly.    Her lingo, at first fresh and vivifying, gets old faster than a werewolf changes form.    She speaks like your run-of-the-mill member of the Internet forums.

Such speaking lessens much of the horrific impact.    Also around part seven of the book she starts to become enamored with her own ability to stack expletives one on top of the other.    I wish I could say that this attitude of heaping curses was humorous or even believable but it emphasizes more Riley Poe’s hollowness.

And the book prides itself so much on its own thickness.    One need only look to the generous chapter size.    For a three hundred page book, there are only ten chapters.    Doing the math, you will see that average chapter length is about thirty pages long.    How’s that for the long side of giving the reader breaks?    But this thickness works so well to create atmosphere.    Would the Louisiana air and dread of ever-present vampirism not be so sludgy without it?

That reminds me.    Let’s talk about the apparent sluttishness of Riley Poe.    Within the first chapter, nearly every character defines her as a horny individual.    At first I wrote this definition off as irrelevant.    Surely her sex drive will not be put to any real test.    Boy was I wrong.

It turns out that the terrible monster plaguing this town is quite a perv and like the first book Riley is the one who is burdened with visions of his kills.    So what’s suggested here – if you’re following me – is the overlap between her own insatiable carnal hunger and the monster’s brutal feeding.

Then as I mention this monster I have to wonder how mad should we be that he is clearly killing the most depraved women in our society.    Would it have hurt the author to have him kill, at least, one innocent?    Then I might have felt a little less weird at being put behind his eyes.    Why should I be tricked into reading the absolute filth that is hiring and sucking a prostitute dry?

It’s a controversial read but those are the ones with potential, right?

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