Jordan Castillo Price - Hemovore

Author: Jordan Castillo Price

Title: Hemovore

Language: English

Format: ebook

Rating: 3 stars

No of pages: 289

Reading challenge: A book where the title is only one word

Read: 07.01.2018

Goodreads

BLURB:

Mark Hansen thought working as artist’s assistant would be glamorous, especially if that artist was a vampire. Black tie events, witty repartee, gracing the pages of the local style section…. Didn’t happen. Not even once.
Jonathan Varga is an enigma. True, he’s quiet, generous, and scrupulously polite. But he has zero social life, refuses to be interviewed or photographed, and insists he can only consume feline blood.
Why supermarket blood won't suffice, Mark hasn’t asked. He’s rarely at a loss for words—he can dish an insult and follow it with a snap as quick as you can say “Miss Thang.” But one look at Jonathan’s black-as-sin gypsy eyes, and Mark’s objections drain away.
So he endures the perpetual grind of their routine: Jonathan hiding in his studio, swiping black paint onto black canvases. Mark hurling insults while he buffs the office to a shine with antiviral wipes. Each of them avoiding the other in a careful choreography…until a blurb in Art in America unleashes a chain of harrowing events.
As secrets from Jonathan’s past are brought to light, it becomes clear that all his precautions weren’t nearly enough.

I must say that the story strayed a bit from the territory I thought it would take me to. I thought that it would be mostly a romance story, but it was more of a mystery/suspense story with a pinch of romance added to it. There was so much to do with the whole mystery of who's trying to frame Jonathan of these awful crimes and why (fine, Jonathan knew it from rather early on, but our protagonist Mark didn't), and I felt that Price put a bit too little emphasis on the growing relationship. (Since I was expecting a romance.)

I felt that the story started really well, but my attention drifted a bit by the time the final pages came round. The pacing was really well done ... till about 75% or so where I started to feel that it was about time the author tied things neatly up. I was also questioning why on earth was she stalling with the ending. Sure, there was a small twist there as well, but the build up to the twist took a bit too long for my liking.

I really liked the twist on the entire vampirism theme with vampirism being a viral disease that kills about three fourths of the people who are unlucky enough to get it. However, as quite a few readers before me have stated, I felt like had been thrown head first into the middle of the series and the entire topic could have been explained a bit better.

I liked how it took Jonathan and Mark a whole lot of time before they got together and how they had legitimate reasons for not really doing anything about their feelings for years ... although where I kind of saw how Mark and Jonathan fit together, I felt that there was also something missing. Maybe the spark because I felt that by the time the guys finally got together, the author seemed to lose interest in the couple and our protagonist Mark's point of view regarding Jonathan was just dry and kind of boring. Give me more details to go on. Show me why they are good together. Show me why they care for one another. Don't just tell me, show me too.

All in all, don't know whether I'll re-read the book or not, but if you're in the mood for an original vampire story, try this one as it's not your typical vampire story.