The dreaming spires of Oxford conceal a dark secret among
these hallowed halls of education and tradition. The Cavaliers. Rich,
influential, titled, powerful and elite club of the truly elite with a herd of
hungering wannabes eager for a place. Oh, and they’re vampires.
Harriet has realised her dream, following in the
footsteps of her tragically deceased cousin Stephanie, she has won a coveted
place at Oxford. It’s a dream come true and opens up avenues of experience and opportunity
she never imagined.
And vampires. Who are very very interested in her – and interest that becomes ever more complicated when she discovers her family history with them, a history which makes her both in demand and untouchable. As she learns more, it’s a question of how much she wants to know, how deep she wants to get and what evils she can tolerate – as well as how much she live on her own terms with the man she chooses; or will she be forced by the society rules she’s only just discovering?
There is a lot about this book that’s intriguing. The setting
in a university and the feel of that is not something I’ve come across before
in the genre.
I also really liked the role Harriet’s family played in
her relationship with the vampires. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, which is hard
but I’ll try and talk round it. While Harriet has a vampire love interest that
is pushing her towards the supernatural – she even has the oh-so-classic love
triangle, her family may be an even greater force and connection.
In a genre full of dead mothers, it’s interesting to see
one taking such an active and powerful role in her daughter’s life. It’s a
shame that that role is borderline villainous but her mother is a complex figure and I think,
despite the rather cold nature of what she does, most of it is in Harriet’s
best interest in a ruthlessly practical manner. If we’re thinking long term
about what is best for Harriet, then she is right, entirely right.
There were two storylines in this book. The first and
primary storyline was Harriet’s acclimatisation to Oxford, settling in, and
discovering the true nature of the Cavaliers. Of course, the problem is that
the reader knows the true nature of the Cavaliers from the prologue, so we’re
then following the protagonists discovery of answers we already know. That’s
not always a bad thing – the journey itself can be interesting, but it tends to
lose me and it did here. Particularly since the secondary plot after that was
the love triangle between Harriet, Tom and George; I don’t like love triangles,
I think the genre is stuffed full of them and they’re all rather clichéd, this
didn’t engage me because I could see the way it was going from the beginning
and it did. There did remain one further revelation about the greater history of
the vampires (which is fascinating and has excellent roots in the Civil War and
I hope that is a storyline that is developed further later) and her familial
connections which I did enjoy.
The second storyline was a series of murders among the vampires
– but this is very much a background event, something that could have been interesting
but I repeatedly forgot about with the other dominant storyline and with a
rather predictable bad guy.
There were, unfortunately, several other elements of this
book that were severe hurdles to me enjoying it.
It was overly descriptive. Yes, Oxford is an extremely
beautiful city full of history and beautiful architecture but there’s a limit
to how often Harriet needs to say this. A book shouldn’t resemble a tourist
information brochure or a university prospectus. There was just a bit too much
rhapsodising and revelling in the wonders of Oxford, it got in the way and
almost felt like an advert.
Also, Oxford university is a university. It’s one of the
most prestigious universities in the world. It’s a place where people go to
learn and where many people, especially poorer people, struggle hard to get a
place. Reading this book it’s possible you may have missed that because
actually learning seems to be very far down Harriet’s (and, for that matter,
her cousin Stephanie’s) priority list. Stephanie openly admits to being there
to snare herself a rich, titled husband. Harriet herself is all about the bars
(this woman drinks booze booze and more booze. I don’t think she can ever be
sober – even for a student it’s impressive. And the booze is nearly always
champagne), parties and bars and parties and social events and parties and
dinners and parties and it’s all about which girls are with which guys and
honour of honours, who has been invited to the poshest of posh societies.
Occasionally this is interspaced with university politics – who gets to be in
charge of the poshest of posh societies. Education? Nah, darling who needs an
education, we’re getting ourselves rich and connected husbands! This doesn’t
just happen with the younger women in the family, but her mother also went to
Oxford and accepted a date to the club despite already dating someone else –
she’s also planning on “dating” her way to success and influence.
The only studious characters are presented as being,
well, dull and very secondary. In fact, Olamide’s relationship collapses
because of excess studiousness.
This dismissal of academics for the social life makes
Harriet seem rather vapid, And it doesn’t help that I don’t really like her
either. I find her repeated chasing of Tom despite his repeated brush offs
annoying, stalkery and pretty desperate. She and her friends grouse about how
rude Tom is being – but when someone continually can’t take no for an answer, I
think rudeness is a pretty acceptable way of finally driving the point home.
She hates and despises Kate and treats her as a massive enemy (and calls her a
“bitch”) despite Kate being pretty nice to her. But Kate has the temerity to be
dating Tom! How very dare she! The only time when Kate is unpleasant is towards the end of the book when Harriet and
Tom are together – but, let’s face it, this is after a considerable amount of
time when Tom was dating Kate and Harriet continued to leap on Tom until Tom finally dumped Kate. I think Kate has a pretty strong justification for
being narked at Tom and Harriet.
And she isn’t a very sensible character. In fact, she’s
downright spunky.
Kate warns her off George, telling her that George has a terrible reputation
for hurting girls and possibly even raping them and how there are a large
number of girls with bruises and cuts who have to take several days off to
recover from their time with him. So what does she do that very night? Go off
with George to an isolated spot, alone, without telling anyone where she’s
going. And when he bites her (an attack she rationalises with “he cut my neck
with a knife”) she then downplays it and accepts his party invitation. Her
throat was cut. He cut her throat. She thinks he stabbed her. I can’t even put words to this, I think an
inarticulate flail at the screen is the best I can manage.
There’s also a rather lack of depth to the full
implications of what’s happening. Harriet manages to find outrage for the
people who died, but considerably less for the victims George abuses. She drily
remarks on the vampires as being an old boy’s club but doesn’t follow through
the implications of that or the amount of power or influence they wield on the
entire nation.
There are a number of minorities in this book, but in
very much background roles. The most prominent PoC is Olamide who is Black and
missing many stereotypes – she’s also the only really academically serious
person there. And when she has a break up, Harriet does make some time to,
well, drop in and leave again, but at least she acknowledges the support that
Olamide has given her through her relationship up and downs in the book. There
are a number of POC lurking in the background who are mainly names – and also
several gay men. Wait, several “very” gay men. How one is very gay rather than
slightly gay or averagely gay, I have no idea, but all of these men are very
very gay indeed. Apparently. Again, they’re names of people passing in the
background, not characters
Also it’s a book set in an extremely elite university,
with the characters constantly buying expensive new clothes, going to expensive
parties, expensive restaurants and drinking endless bottles of champagne like
water – but despite Harriet being raised in a much more modest home in the
north of England there is pretty much no consideration of class.
In the end, I have a book with a very nice concept and
some very interesting ideas – and certainly some interesting plot hooks for
later books – but with an execution I don’t care for. The writing was too
descriptive for my taste, I don’t like the slowly enveloping mystery that we already
know the answer to, I don’t think the two storylines were particularly well
balanced and, most difficult of all, I really don’t like Harriet. To be
brutally honest, if it weren’t for my connections to the setting, I would have
DNFed the book. A lot of this is taste, however, so read the review and
discover what I disliked rather than going simply off the fang rating. And, despite this, I will be checking book 2
A copy of this book was provided by the author to review
