As promised, here is my first daily-themed blog post!

I was going to start with these yesterday, because I’m pretty anal about starting weekly things on Mondays (haha), but it was a holiday in Canada, and I tried to stay off my laptop for the entire day before it’s back to work, and back to looking at a screen for hours upon hours in a day, haha.

So, without further ado, here is the first paragraph, of the first chapter of my ARC copy of Kiersten White’s And I Darken:

Vlad Dracul’s heavy brow descended like a storm when the doctor informed him that his wife had given birth to a girl. His other children—one from his first wife, now nearly full grown, and even a bastard child from his mistress, born last year—had been boys. He had not though his seek weak enough to produce a girl.

If that won’t get someone hooked and wanting to read more, I don’t know what will. The first paragraph, along with the summary (see this post) of And I Darken were exactly the right combo for me to just want to know everything which takes place in this book. Vlad the Impaler, as a girl! How would that go? How would that change the story?

What initially caught my attention about this book is the cover. It is GORGEOUS. In my defense though, on NetGalley (and most everywhere else), the cover is the first thing you see. Then the title, then the summary. And in that same order, this book captured my undivided attention. I had to get my hands on it! And so, I requested an ARC.

Luckily for me, I was accepted to read and review this book, and I couldn’t be happier! I won’t go into the details about how this book talks about some of the Romanian history which I grew up with (because I already discussed that here), but will discuss the appeal of the writing, plot, and characters themselves.

I am about halfway into the book, and since I have finished the after-work work which I had signed up for from my internship, I will more than likely finish within the next few days. (Keep an eye out for my review!)

What I can say for Kiersten White’s book thus far, though, is that she is very skilled at world-building (as in, she paints a clear picture of the characters’ surroundings, without drowning the reader in over-descriptive language), her characters and well-rounded, and either liked or disliked, and the plot itself is interesting and moves at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow).

I am very excited to see where this book is going, and you will all hear about it soon!

Disclaimer: I have received permission from the author herself, to use the short excerpt from her book in this blog post.