3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Twisted Fate by Mel Evers is a lesbian vampire erotic romance novel. That string of adjectives, in essence, contains just about everything you need to know about the book. It follows Melissa, a centuries-old vampire, and Sage, her soulmate, as they attempt to stop Melissa's vindictive ex-boyfriend from ruining their lives. Sage's mother hates vampires, and Melissa is constantly concerned about her vampiric nature somehow harming Sage. By a conservative estimate, about a quarter of the novel is taken up by sex scenes, even when they have little impact on the plot.
While there's nothing wrong with this premise, it's rather overdone within the genre. Twisted Fate isn't terrible, but it isn't especially exceptional. Melissa and Sage fall in love at first sight, giving the author an excuse to completely avoid any significant interpersonal conflicts between them. All of the conflicts in the novel ultimately stem from Melissa's ex-boyfriend. As a result, Melissa and Sage are deprived of any real character depth.
Melissa's constant concern with her "monster" also became tedious somewhere around the twentieth time it was mentioned. Once again, it hinders character depth since this is the only real flaw in Melissa's character. Arguably, it isn't even her fault! Complex characters are flawed, and there was a distinct lack of flaws in both Sage and Melissa. Many of the side characters were more engaging than them.
Despite overusing common tropes, there's nothing inherently wrong with Twisted Fate. The plot was exciting, and the worldbuilding, while fairly standard, was effective and believable. There was a strong supporting cast, even if they didn't get as much attention as I would've liked. The sex scenes, while plentiful and often shoehorned in, were at least well-written.
In my opinion, the strongest aspect of Twisted Fate is the distinct lack of homophobia. As a bisexual individual myself, I find it extremely refreshing for an author to stay focused on other aspects of the plot, rather than making homophobia a major aspect of the book to attain a flimsy sense of realism. Melissa and Sage were teased, never shamed, about the amount of sex they had. In reality, this wasn't much more egregious than many heterosexual vampire romance novels.
Twisted Fate is a great book for committed fans of vampire romance, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't enamored with this genre. It doesn't add anything particularly interesting to the typical premise, but it accomplishes what it set out to do in an enjoyable way, so I rate it 3 out of 4 stars.
******
Twisted Fate
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like ViziVoir's review? Post a comment saying so!