Saturday 9 June 2012

RESTRAINT


3/5
by 

Sandra Madera
Amazon.UK
Amazon.com

Laura Carter's mother died in childbirth to her, and her father could never forgive Laura for that. Or so Laura (and the reader) is led to believe. Instead, she begins to uncover a horrific family secret and the very reason her father appeared to hate her so. When her father dies, Laura and her sister are left in the care of their uncle Raymond Reynolds and are shipped off to England.

The opening was strong and hooked me in, but I soon became a bored with the characters and all their "because it's expected of me" culture. Then it took a bizarre and somewhat exciting turn, and I was up until the early hours reading - but it took almost half way through to get to the interesting part. I'm glad I stuck with it though. Vampire stories are becoming something of a cliché lately but Restraint was different simply because it was written very much in the historical genre. I also wasn't expecting the vampires to be so scary and evil.

Suitable for 16 plus Restraint contained no swearing or "rude scenes", but the suggestion of something more was evident in the scenes with Laura and Bryan Froster. I sensed an attraction between them even though Laura detested and was frightened of him. 

Restraint is part of a series, and although this story ended with all ends tied it left the reader wanting to know more about the characters, especially Laura and Elias (love interest? Maybe it'll be revealed in the next instalment?). I felt there was a lot more to the story than the author was willing to reveal, and I wonder how the saga will pan out? 

The most annoying, but small, thing that irked me about Restraint was that the main characters, Laura and Linda, had such similar names that I had to keep flipping back to see who was who. It was even more annoying than the typos I found (although they didn't detract from the story) were too many for me not to notice. It was a shame because otherwise Restraint was very well written.

Blurb:

After the abrupt death of her father, Laura Carter and her sister, Linda, are shipped off to England by an uncle they barely know. They are taken to a large house in Annesley to begin a life of service. When Laura becomes a governess to a young boy named Marcus, she begins to experience strange things in the night... horrible things.


Creatures in the night. Bite marks on her body. 

Laura is about to discover a secret that has existed in her family for generations... Something wants to possess her. It wants her blood, but it didn't expect her to resist and lose all restraint.