Review of Death of Innocence: The Foxworth Coven book one by Kayden MacLeod

I actually took the time to look up The Foxworth Coven Book One: Death of Innocence by Kayden MacLeod on Amazon because I wanted to see what the cover looked like in color. That’s the one drawback of having a Kindle, isn’t it?

I love vampire books. They’re a weakness. I particularly have a weakness for vampire books with twists. Death of Innocence has both.

Canya, a human with a trace of vampire blood, suffers from a harsh home life and longs to escape into a life with her rich lover, the father of her unborn child. He, however, has other ideas. Not wanting to be shackled to poor, desperate Canya he pays an unscrupulous doctor for poison to take care of both of his problems. He leaves her dying in the woods not knowing that an unusual Good Samaritan is nearby.

Gregory Foxworth, heir to the Surrey vampire Coven, overhears Canya’s mental anguish and uses his powers to save her life and send her back home safe and sound. Or so he thinks. Canya’s respite is short lived. She’s soon tossed out on her ear in the streets with the whole populace of the village shunning and ridiculing her for her foolishness of claiming that the son of the towns’ richest man tried to kill her. Gregory once more rides to her rescue and takes her back with him to his home, offering her sanctuary, friendship, family and eventually immortality.

There is, of course, a snake in this little garden in the form of Antonio, Gregory’s adopted brother. His entire European Coven had been slaughtered leaving him the only survivor.  Antonio snaps plunging the family into a maelstrom of blood, chaos and vampire court politics. These are not Bram Stoker’s vampires, though there’s a lovely little tribute to that Gothic author in the book. There are different classes of vampires from purebloods and purebreds like Gregory and his parents and brother Corbin to the created like Canya, all the way up the Originals, mysterious super power beings who were the first vampires to step out of the mists. You only get to meet one of the Originals in this book, Manuel, but I really want to know more about them.

I really liked Gregory, though his family (with the glaring exception of Antonio) seems to be much too good to be true at times.  Canya was difficult for me to bond with (no pun intended). She’s a little too forgiving for me. When under Antonio’s spell she’s forced to kill the man who’d originally caused her shame she agonizes over it. She endures horrible things and always seem to spring back a little too readily. Honestly, if I’d been under half of her strain I’d have snapped long before then. Gregory’s anger, pain and desperation felt much more real to me. I really felt it when he made a deal with a deity to save Canya.

This is a nice quick read.  In retrospect I should have slowed down from time to time. The dual first person narrative occasionally confused he. The narrative voices of Gregory and Canya were sometimes too similar so I had to look back and see who was telling this part of the story.  

Death of Innocence is a great summer read. It’s steamy enough to require a dip in the pool and Antonio is an intriguing villain. You really never know exactly what he’s thinking and what he’ll do next which lends a delicious uncertainty to the book. I know not all the questions were answered. It’s only book one, after all and I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the reasons Antonio was so unpredictable is that someone else is yanking his chain, but I suppose I’ll have to wait until Book Two to find out!

Death of Innocence published by Solstice Publishing is currently available in eBook format through Amazon or on the Solstice website. Take a moment and wander into the Canadian wilderness just after the turn of the 20^th century. You never know, the mysterious blue eyed stranger who decides to walk with you in the sunlight might be more than he seems.

I told you they weren’t your typical Bela Lugosi vampires!