Queen of Shadows
Queen of Shadows by Dianne Sylvan
Shadow World #1
Meet Miranda Grey-music and magic are in her blood.
Overwhelmed by her uncanny ability to manipulate people's emotions through her music, Miranda Grey comes to the attention of vampire lord David Solomon. Believing he can help bring her magic under control, David discovers that Miranda's powers may affect the vampire world too...
Each and every day is an utter struggle for Miranda. She must avoid contact with others at all costs or risks losing her mind and maybe even her life. She has the ability to manipulate emotions, but they also consume her, severely blurring the lines between herself and others. The only time she can control it is when she is performing her music, but even those precious moments are becoming hard to keep from slipping through her fingers. All that changes when she crosses paths with the vampire king, David. He can help her gain control over her abilities, and even teach her how to use them to her advantage. But this comes at a price, as coming into his world proves to be very dangerous, and she'll need every resource available to stay alive through the brewing war.
I'm not really sure how I feel about David and Miranda together. He seemed to fight their budding relationship tooth and nail even thought it was obvious he was borderline obsessed with her. I just found this to be odd considering the way their society works, and the fact that he knew he would find a queen to share his power. I'm just not sure why he stayed in such denial over the possibility that it might be more than just simple infatuation. As far as Miranda's end, to be honest, it seemed rather unrealistic. I'm going to have to put a slight spoiler in order to explain, so just be warned. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Okay, so she was gang raped in the very beginning of the book, and understandably has extreme issues with any man coming near her afterwards. Yet somehow David flies right under that radar from the very start. She states many times that she doesn't think she'll ever let another mortal man touch her again, but even other immortal men cause her to panic, with only David being the exception. I could somewhat understand this if David had been overly supportive from the start, but he really came off as quite harsh towards her quite often.
Queen of Shadows seemed to really push alternative lifestyles. Let me state up from that I have absolutely no problem with homosexuality. I firmly believe that you cannot choose who you love, and never should be judged for it. That being said, I still have this odd uncomfortableness in relation to gay men. Again I have no problem with their choices, but I just don't particularly want to see/read it. I'm a little better when it comes to women, but it still isn't at my full comfort level. To be honest I feel really bad about this, but it is what it is. As there wasn't any "action" in that department, the issue didn't bother me, but it definitely made me cautious and lessened my enjoyment a little. I will say that I will probably not be reading the next installment, because the reviews seem to point in a lot of "action" in that area. Again I feel terrible about these hangs ups, but I just can't justify reading something that will make me uncomfortable.
I'm pretty sure Queen of Shadows was marketed as an Urban Fantasy, but it read more like a Paranormal Romance. Yes there was an outside conflict, but that seemed to be only a backdrop to the romantic development (read: major tension and drama) between David and Miranda. In the end I was pretty disappointed with most of Queen of Shadows, which is a shame because there was so much potential, especially in the unique world. That being said, I still think I may check out future works by this author, just probably not in this series.
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