2.5 stars, DNF at 40% because I just was not engaged. This read a lot like Pirates of Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl but with vampires instead of immortal ghost things: The rich girl ends up on a pirate ship after a raid on her home island, and the boy who loves her struggles to find her and bring her home. Although I love that movie and vampire pirates sound cool, the familiarity and strong sense that I already knew this story kept me from ever really engaging in it.
I don’t remember the MC’s name now, but I didn’t like her. She seemed self-absorbed and manipulative. For example, when she’s kidnapped with some other people and put on a vampire pirate ship, she realizes that she recognizes the girl next to her: “I don’t know her well, but I'm glad to see an at least somewhat familiar face.” So what she’s saying is that she’s fine with the fact that a girl she knows is in danger, just as long as she doesn’t need to be in danger alone. Also, she knew James loved her, so she knew he would go along with whatever she asked of him, no matter how dangerous. She never seems to reciprocate his feelings, though. She hardly ever thinks about him when he isn’t right in front of her, and when she does, she thinks about how much he loves her rather than how much she loves him. Of course, she doesn’t owe him love just because he loves her, but it seems like James is supposed to be a member of her harem, and I prefer the feelings of my love interests to be on more equal footing. The relationship already seemed unfair to James, so I really wasn’t looking forward to him realizing he would need to share her (as this is an RH).
The writing itself was rough as well. It had tons of malapropisms, problems with word choice (e.g., “his” instead of “him”), question marks after statements, and other issues. At one point, the author wrote “an attempt to/at escape,” which just seems like a leftover from an earlier draft, like she forgot to choose which phrase she wanted to use there. I also noticed inconsistencies in whether the author wished to include a period after “Mr” (the convention changes depending on whether you use British or US English).
I also thought it was odd that the MC was able to have a drawn out farewell with someone who died in the vampire battle while the murderous vampire apparently just stood to the side and let her finish. There was no mention of him leaving the scene, but then the author talks about him returning, so the whole scene was odd.
This just wasn’t for me.
PROGRESS UPDATES
13% I can honestly say that, until now, I never read a book that contains the word "vampirate."