The Vampire Prince by S.J. Frost

[Ulysses]

Three stars is "good" for me. Just so you don't think it's a dismissal. S.J. Frost's "Vampire Prince" is a fun book. I really enjoyed it. I liked her variation on vampires--a genre I care about deeply as a writer. Sebastian and Valentin are, ultimately, interesting characters, each with his own back-story. To my mind, they started out a little two-dimensional, and I felt that the launch of the story was, if not rushed exactly, a bit too quickly managed. Valentin's arrival into Sebastian's world just happened too fast. Some tighter editing would, I think, have helped solved this problem, as well as smoothing out some rough writing.

That said, the book gets better and better as it progresses; the author's voice gets more sure, the characters get more complex; and the action more interesting. I liked Basil and Sal, and particularly enjoyed the back-and-forth banter among the four men--the way Sebastian becomes part of their world and embraces them as friends. There were moments when you forgot you were dealing with paranormal creatures, and felt that you were just in the presence of four young men, behaving like twenty-somethings. That was a refreshing twist.