Review: Wicked Night

Wicked Night by Evi Rhodes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the start of what is clearly going to be a much larger series. The world that gets created here is unique and compelling, filled with vampires, demons, and other mythical creatures.

Gwen is the central character in this universe. She's had a bit of a shock when her emotionally distant parents inform her that she's actually the product of her mother's affair with the leader of the vampires. As a half-breed, she will soon go through a change, either killing her or making her into a vampire herself. She has also been assigned a mentor, in the form of Wicked (yes, that's his name, they all have new names after transition and they are all similar to that). Their first meeting doesn't really go well, and while they are both attracted to one another, that relationship is frowned upon so Wicked decides to push her away rather harshly.

Wicked is next in line to take over as leader. As such, he's got oodles of pressure on him, including pairing up with a good queen. While Gwen would fit in quite nicely, being the daughter of their current leader, he is way too stubborn to admit it. It takes 100% of the other people in the house falling in love with her (which was a bit... odd) to make him get jealous enough to claim her. There is a lot of build up in their relationship, but things, of course, can't go smoothly for main characters. There's a lot of evil machinations that try to get in there way, and still may succeed in future books.

We spend a lot of time learning about the history of their race, how training works, how much all the other warriors are falling in love with Gwen, and also band practice (?). This book switches POVs a lot, giving us a look inside just about everyone's head, which was a little confusing at first. It took a large part of the book before I got used to these switches and started to get sucked in. The ending resolves the more romantic issues, but leaves me with so many questions! When will we meet her dad? What is happening with Gwen? What will happen with Wicked's second in command? What about the big bads? What about the demons? We almost learned too much in this first installment and I don't even know where to begin hoping for more in the second.

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