Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Vesper ~ Jeff Sampson review

Vesper (Deviants #1)
Balzer + Bray
January 25, 2011
304 pages
Amazon


Emily Webb prefers wearing baggy clothes to hide her figure, watching Buffy or reading to going to parties, but as we're introduced to her, she's trying to sneak out of her room --only she doesn't know why. It's a call from Emily's best friend Megan Reed, Reedy, that startles her back to reality during her sneaking out--a call telling her that Emily Cooke, the 'other' Emily at school has been murdered.

Having a girl murdered just a few streets a way is soon not the strangest (or scariest) thing for Emily W., however. Every night after Emily C's death she finds herself a stronger Emily, no longer needing her glasses, and wanting to sneak out of her house in sexy clothing (borrowed from her stepsister)--all things she'd never have dreamed of doing just days earlier.

Referring to her wilder self as 'Nighttime Emily,' Emily W begins to wonder if she's being possessed by the recently murdered Emily C. As Nighttime Emily puts her in more dangerous situations and more students at her high school are shot, Emily knows she needs to figure out what's happening to her. She also needs to find out why, ever time she's 'Nightime Emily' she goes searching for a boy with a certain scent . . . almost as if she's needs to find them


Vesper is a really unique book. While it is a werewolf book--or the start to a werewolf series, it's a lot more about a girl uncovering what's happening to her and around her than werewolves. In fact, there's not actually a lot of werewolveyness in Vesper at all, but I think it's likely that there will be more in the latter books. This book was more of a mystery with Emily trying to figure out why she was turning into a different person every night, someone so unlike herself and finding a way to manage that new self.

I would have liked to have more of the story to know where this was going but since there's not more of it out just yet I guess I'll just have to wait and see where Vesper, Emily, and the 'Deviants' take things. Vesper's definitely a book that would have me picking up the next book in the series if it was available. If you don't like first books in series that are almost like introductions, I would suggest you wait until, at least, there is a release date for Book 2 in this series.

I did enjoy that Emily wasn't an extreme character. She wasn't the one always getting teased, she wasn't the super popular girl, she wasn't terribly awkward . . . yes, she was a geek who liked her sci-fi stuff and wasn't comfortable with her physical appearance, but she was really just, well, average. She was anybody in that sense.

The transcripts of Emily Webb's interrogations with someone from the Vesper Company being included made things almost suspenseful. You knew something was going to happen to Emily--something worthy of her being questioned about--you just had to get to it. After reading the book and knowing why she was being questioned and what all she uncovered, I'm really looking forward to more in this series and seeing just how things do develop.

This is a book that keeps you reading--not necessarily one that keeps you having to know just exactly what will happen in the next instant, but still one that keeps you reading until the end and I can only see it getting better.


7/10


thank you to the publisher for sending me this book

3 comments:

  1. Interesting... what I like is that the girls had the same name. Not enough books have characters with the same name. of course that may be confusing but it's realistic cuz there are alot of emilys in the world. thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I received this today. I can't wait to read it.

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  3. @Liana
    I think both girls being named Emily worked in this book because there were distinctions made (and only one Emily was in the book most of the time) . . . and there are a lot of Emilys!

    @Medeia
    I hope you enjoy it :)


    Thank you both for commenting!

    ReplyDelete

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