SLEEP Tula Neal

THE VAMPIRE ORACLE: SLEEP*
Tula Neal
Cobblestone Press
ebook: $3.99
3/5

Sleep is essentially the story of a man rescuing the woman he is destined to be with. In this case the man, Kai, works for a paranormal agency and the women, Gabrielle, is a vampire deranged by a century of captivity. The story is told from Kai's point of view. This was something I was pleased to learn as I happen to be a great fan of male POV romance fiction.

I found Sleep an effortless and entertaining read. However I felt that Kai was thinly characterised and exhibited rather little in the way of skill or intelligence. His research skills in finding Gabrielle (the main focus of the plot) seemed to be a combination of happenstance, rudimentary strategies like going to the public library, and relying on the vast resources of the paranormal society that employs him. It was difficult to find him a particularly admirable protagonist and he does not seem to develop as a character throughout the story.

His fascination with Gabrielle before they even meet is the most vivid and convincing element of the Sleep, but in terms of being a genre romance Kai first lays eyes on Gabrielle a full two thirds of the way through the book. In terms of being an erotic romance, the sex scenes would add up in total to about 1 and 1/2 pages out of 60. If you want a straightforward tale of boy wants girl, boy rescues girl, boys gets girl, Sleep may be for you. However I felt the romance and erotic elements were slight, meaning the novel rests largely on the appeal of Kai as a protagonist and a desire to see him win the woman (literally) of his dreams.

(On a minor note the italicising of zombies throughout struck me as unnecessary and distracting.)

*Ebook provided by the author. Disclaimer: I have fiction published by Cobblestone Press.