Denied by Pat Brien

Title: Denied
Author: Pat Brien
ISBN: 978-1848764132
Publisher: Matador
First Published: September 2010
No. of Pages: 402

Rating: 2/5

Synopsis (Amazon):
The battle between good and evil has become a war between love and lust As the black clouds of the industrial age begin their creeping domination of Northern England, a brooding vampire, Bachell, settles on the outskirts of a bustling Lancashire town, searching for the perfect victim. Under a death sentence by a powerful female vampire, Maria, with whom he is obsessed, he has neglected his needs to a dangerous degree. Now he must either feed successfully or face a fate worse than death. And his perfect victim must be willing. Not only is the strong-willed but naive Katie not willing, she is soon to be married. This leads Bachell into a desperate game of manipulation and seduction, dramatically pitting the ideals and emotions of young love against the dark forces of sexual fantasy and lust. In the bloody aftermath, a group of vampire hunters head to Paris to destroy their enemies. However, with Maria reigning from the shadows, they find themselves having to make dark choices. As disaster looms, they seek the help of a shy, beautiful young man, whose deadly power stems from a tragic curse.

Review:
As someone who loves vampire fiction, I was very much looking forward to reading this new addition to the blood-sucking canon.

Denied showed so much promise, but despite having a slightly more original concept than most recent vampire novels (most of them for the teen market and angsty Twilight Saga rip-offs), but it seems to lose sight of its aims half-way through, with far too many threads that take too long to go pretty much nowhere.

The novel is split into two halves where it really should have been split into two books – Denied and its sequel, and it even leaves things slightly open for a further foray into the story without promising to do so. Even so, I don’t think I would personally bother picking up a sequel were one forthcoming.

None of the characters really ring altogether true and there are many stereotypes as well as characters that pop up in places with no real purpose, which is a shame, because if Denied had been tighter it could have been a riveting read. Unfortunately it was just too long for what was there.

Reviewed by Kell Smurthwaite