Serafina and the Silent Vampire

Serafina and the Silent Vampire
by Marie Treanor
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
I was really surprised by how much I liked this one. I've been out of the vampire scene for quite a while and I wasn't too sure that I wanted to get back into it. This one has a lot of the “normal” vampire troupes like the sexuality involved in being bitten, but it sort of took a broad view of vampirism without getting too specifically into the hows and whys.

This story is about Serafina MacBride, a psychic/telepath who can sense emotions and speak to the dead. Interestingly enough, she doesn't believe in vampires until she's presented with conclusive evidence. She runs a paranormal style agency, partly as a scam and partly to resolve her own guilt about the people in her life that she thinks she should have been able to save.

Serafina is really complex. She's smart and tough and generally tries to avoid love, but she's really protective of her friends and pretty much anyone who's hurting. She's so intense that she loses friendships easily, but she does whatever she can to give people the benefit of the doubt. She always is alone because of her psychic abilities but she also feel special because of them. She was very relatable. I liked her and knew where she was coming from.

Blair was also a likable but complex character. He wants to seem all tough and he is, but he also really cares for his friends and his responsibilities. He pretends like he's unfeeling and cold but it's all an act. I didn't find him to be all that emotionally intelligent. He doesn't express his emotions verbally or even when the story picks up his perspective, but he's definitely action oriented and shows he cares pretty obviously.

It was a really interesting perspective that these vampires are unable to speak. Not only are they separate and trying to stay hidden, but they have no connection to humans except as a food supply. I don't think I ever saw one of Blair's set write, text, use a computer, etc. They had no means of communication with humans except body language and the occasional bit of telepathic suggestion until Blair meets Serafina. It made the vampire world in this book really closed off and separate. Even the vampires individually were very disconnected from each other.

I felt like the location of the story was really dark and oppressive. Like dark storm clouds hanging around and keeping everything rather drab and gray. It felt very low to the ground. Almost a steampunk/post-apocalyptic feeling. The only place I remember some color was inside Blair's house. It's the way lots of vampire stories feel to me, but at least for this one the action is pretty constant so you don't end up feeling like the story itself is depressed.

In the same vein, I kept throwing myself into the Regency period with this one. It's a modern day story, but most of the time it completely works as a Regency too. There are only occasional use of cars or phones or modern technology (although there was lots of coffee). I'd be reading along and forget the time period until there was a computer thrown into the story and then I'd feel like I got whiplashed back into the modern era.

The people in this story generally had a positive, can-do attitude. So even with the closed off and restricted nature of the story, it was action packed and enjoyable without feeling depressed or fatalistic. Even with all the violence, it all gets painted with a somewhat broad brush so we're not sucked into the disaster, but can simply look from the outside. We don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty, but can enjoy the fast pace and thrill.

I ended up taking quite a while to read this one. Only getting in a couple pages at a time before I'd get called away again. But the story was well told and concise enough that I never felt lost re-entering this world. It's the first book in a series, so there were lots of pieces thrown into the story that weren't resolved yet. Nothing like a cliff hanger, but just lots of whys that I hope will be resolved later in the series. I liked this story a lot and I will definitely read the next book in the series.

I received a complementary ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.