Karolina Dalca, Dark Eyes Blog Tour @TheWriteReads

Hello people! Today I am here with a review and a blog tour, yay! I hope you all are having a fantastic Sunday, or at least, better than mine, since I would be working, but let’s begin with this blog tour hosted by The Write Reads!

Title: Karolina Dalca, Dark Eyes
Author: M.R. Noble
Published: December 16th, 2020

Blindsided by an attack that destroys her home and blamed for murder, Karolina Dalca, a half-vampire, escapes, only to plunge into the magical societies from which she was sheltered.
Betrayed by those around her, she abandons her dreams of becoming an investigator and flees, trusting only herself. Her police internship would never prove more useful. Hoofing it through the wilderness, she makes it to her university dorm, disheveled but delightfully deflowered.
Enter a full vampire: one wielding dark magic and a ride out of Canada. A fugitive from the law, Karo complies with his demands to escape, unsure whether his requests are bewitched. She vows to clear her name and avenge her mother’s death, but Karo’s family secrets aren’t so easily left behind.

I think that this book has great potentialities to it, and it has a lot of good things going on. Lately I was in the mood for some Twilight-like book (hence, my wish to take part to this tour, and my reading of Crave too. I was just in the right mood for it, and who I am to say no to a mood-reading??) and, on some respect this book delivered. Mind me, I am not say that this book is a bad copy of Twilight, but the comparison is unavoidable, because there are huge similarities, even if they are not the same.

One of the best thing of this book was the places that we get to visit thanks to it. We get to do a nice trip from the woodlands of Canada to Romania first, and Russia later. I have never been in Romania, even if I’d love to visit it, so it was quite nice to enjoy a trip there through the book. And I may have a little weakness for Russia, so I was quite happy.
And another interesting thing in there is the magical system. Yes, we have vampires and werewolves in there, but we have also magic. And there are different kinds of it.
Our MC, Karolina Dalca, is half vampire and half gipsy, and she wields two different kinds of magic, thanks to her peculiar lineage. She can wield fire magic thanks to her being vampire (and not just any vampire!), and she can wield heart magic too, even if this is not her strongest suit. And it quite interesting to see how the magic work in there.
And on top of that, it was a fast-paced reading, the right book if you just want to keep busy for an afternoon, without too much to think.

But there were also things that didn’t work for me, or at least, not so much. On one hand I really think that this book need an editorial reading, because there were some things that could have been avoided with a good editing. I had the strong impression that this book is quite unripe, if I can say so, and a good editing could have helped this book feel less so. At least, in my opinion. I think that this is my main complaint, and it is quite a big one.
The other thing that didn’t work great for me was that… it was not bad, and it was fast-paced and not boring, and I wasn’t bored by it, but I was not hooked up either. The characters are not so well developed, Karolina is the MC and is the best characterized, but I cannot say the same for Andre and Roman. There is potential in them, yes, but it is not so well developed. And this is quite a shame.
And even if I liked Karo, she made me roll my eyes so many times that I lost count. She may have the excuse of ignorance, but it goes just so far. Bad choice after bad choice (and okay, some of them were plain stupid, not just bad choices) I lost all my faith in her. And in the story.

I cannot really say that this was a bad book, because it is not so bad. But it is not so good either. I give it 3 hearts (or stars, if you prefer), because it is an entertaining read, fast and good when you need something not demanding and fast-paced, to take off your mind for some time, and I also think that it could be made better with a bit of work on it.

Author Bio

M. R. Noble has played a tug of war between science and art her whole life, but the rope broke when she wrote the first line of The Dark Eyes Series. Immersed up to her keyboard in paranormal romance and urban fantasy, she enjoys blending the real with the surreal. The only drawback is she misplaces her mug while dreaming up her next scene, and soon finds herself six cups overpoured.
Keeping to her Lake Simcoe roots, she is a member of the Writers Community of York Region (WCYR), where her muse is made not found . . . over a hefty cup of coffee.

Links:

https://mrnoblefiction.com/about/

https://www.facebook.com/M.R.Noblefiction/

Tweets by M_R_Noble

Tweets by M_R_Noble

https://www.amazon.com/M-R-Noble/e/B08KWS8CJL/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=sl2&tag=puretextu-20&linkId=4beed6e953656cff5794be672e710122&language=en_US

And that’s all for today! Have you read this book? What do you think??

Happy reading!
S.