Early Review – Belle Morte by Bella Higgin (2/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 380 pages
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: April 5, 2022
ASIN: B09HPNKQVS
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 2/5 stars
“Belle Morte. One of five houses where vampires reside as celebrities and humans are paid to be their living donors. While others came here seeking fortune, I came in search of my sister who walked into Belle Morte five months ago . . . and never walked back out.
Now that I’m here, the secrets about this world have proven to be much bigger than I ever anticipated. And lurking around every corner are shocking insinuations of what happened to my sister.
There’s only one person who might have the answers I need, and the undeniable pull I feel toward him is terrifying: Edmond Dantès―a vampire, and my mortal enemy.
The harder I try to resist him, the further I fall under his spell. And in one instant my life is irrevocably changed. My past becomes prologue and my fate becomes sealed behind these doors.
Belle Morte has spoken. And it may never let me go.”
Series Info/Source: This seems to be the first book in a series. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley. I can only say shame on me for being drawn in by a pretty cover.
Thoughts: This was a pretty bad book. I was expecting kind of a mediocre YA vampire fantasy going in and what I got was a bit worse than that.
The premise here is simple (just like the whole plot). Renie’s sister volunteered to be a donor at one of the glitzy vampire houses (vampires have recently outed themselves and everyone is cool with that). Then her sister disappeared. Now Renie has offered to be a donor in order to get inside the house of Belle Morte to solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance.
Of course while she is there she meets a hot vampire and gets into a forbidden relationship with him too! Hmmm….this whole book and plot seem strangely familiar.
There was absolutely nothing in this book that wasn’t expected and there was a lot of page space given to a lot of nothing at all. You can seriously skim most of this book and not miss much of the “story”.
The characters were fairly one dimensional and not very easy to love; they were all just kind of silly.
The writing style itself was okay and not terribly difficult to read. I did think it odd that Renie’s POV was first person and Edwards’s POV was third person. Did I mention we switch back and forth between Renie’s and Edward’s (the main vamp protagonist) POV in typical YA paranormal romance style?
My Summary (2/5): Overall, in the end there wasn’t anything I actually liked about this. It is a very quick and easy read which is the only reason I finished it. I guess if you are looking for a predictable and slightly trashy fan-fic-style YA vamp read you might enjoy this. It wasn’t for me.
