Review: Infinite Days

Infinite Days (Vampire Queen #1)

Rebecca Maizel

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Release Date: August 3, 2010

Pages: 310

Ratings: 4.5 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

Lenah Beaudonte is, in many ways, your average teen: the new girl at Wickham Boarding School, she struggles to fit in enough to survive and stand out enough to catch the eye of the golden-boy lacrosse captain. But Lenah also just happens to be a recovering five-hundred-year-old vampire queen. After centuries of terrorizing Europe, Lenah is able to realize the dream all vampires have -- to be human again. After performing a dangerous ritual to restore her humanity, Lenah entered a century-long hibernation, leaving behind the wicked coven she ruled over and the eternal love who has helped grant her deep-seated wish.

Until, that is, Lenah draws her first natural breath in centuries at Wickham and rediscovers a human life that bears little resemblance to the one she had known. As if suddenly becoming a teenager weren’t stressful enough, each passing hour brings Lenah closer to the moment when her abandoned coven will open the crypt where she should be sleeping and find her gone. As her borrowed days slip by, Lenah resolves to live her newfound life as fully as she can. But, to do so, she must answer ominous questions: Can an ex-vampire survive in an alien time and place? What can Lenah do to protect her new friends from the bloodthirsty menace about to descend upon them? And how is she ever going to pass her biology midterm?

Infinite Days has become one of my favorite new books this year. I have gone completely fan girl over this novel. In a genre dominated with the same type of stereotypical vampires, ones who make life as a vampire sexy and attractive, Rebecca Maizel puts a new spin on vampires, one that teaches redemption and what it means to live. I laughed, I cried, I screamed, I gasped, and I loved this book. I really loved this book and I’m struggling to put exactly how much I loved it into words

From the first chapter, Rebecca Maizel had me sucked into the story. I loved that, instead of desiring to be a vampire, like so many characters in books now want, Lenah wants to escape from just that and, instead, desires humanity. I loved Rebecca Maizel’s vampires. Her spin on vampires was intriguing. Vampires in Lenah’s world have no feeling, they are numb, empty shells with echoes of emotions and sensations. Lenah misses her humanity and desires to feel more than just numb; she wants to experience all the emotions and sensations that she recalls from being human. Luckily, Lenah has Rhode who loves her and is willing to sacrifice himself for her happiness. Lenah’s story starts here, in present day with Rhode’s sacrifice. Rebecca Maizel however is able to show Lenah’s previous life and life as a vampire through beautifully written flashbacks to certain events in her history that correspond to what is going on in her human life.

While I can go on and on about how this book is not simply a vampire book, but about making up for misdeeds and redeeming oneself, I will move onto more important stuff, like the other reasons I loved this book, like the characters, the writing and the plot. While reading this book, I feel in love immediately with two of the many boys in Lenah’s life. The two boys I loved where not the ones I thought I would end up loving when I started reading this book. These two lovely guys are Tony and Vicken. Tony, was by far, my favorite character in the book. I loved Tony. I was constantly wishing that Lenah would dump Justin and go with Tony, the artistic, funny one. And, Vicken….phew. I thought I’d be more of a Rhode fan, but something about Vicken, drew me in, probably because he was cast as the villain at times. All of Rebecca Maizel’s characters were extremely well written and each unique in there all way. Her characters and their relationships drove the story forward, without them, the story would not exist.

This novel was beautifully written and captivating. I was drawn in from page one and got sucked in more and more as the story continued. And the ending, boy, that ending was amazing. Infinite Days is a great first novel in a series, and if the following books are anything like this first book, this series is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to see where Rebecca Maizel takes Lenah and the rest of the characters in this series in the following books and am anxiously awaiting the next book in the series.