the musings of a virtual ghost

Dead by Dusk was a difficult book to process once I was done with it. The lack of chemistry between the leads, unnecessarily long first act and rushed ending didn't help at all, but it was rescued by the heavy giallo movie vibes it excels at and the use of the vampire myth to set the perfect horror adjacent mood I was pleasantly surprised by. Setting the story in Italy was the perfect choice, and I give extra points to Drake for that.

I'll use the mention of gialli movies to add that the usual content warnings for that genre apply and are as follows, please click the 'read more' option to see them: ( Read more... ) Shannon Drake is very subtle with the language she uses for most of these situations, but they're there nonetheless.

I can say that while the book is part of a series, for the most part it's pretty standalone besides two characters that commit the crime of delivering the biggest info dump at the start of act 3, which happens very, very late in the book. Any characterization they might have had until then is forgotten, and they turn into useful encyclopedias with legs. The secondary cast is where most of the interesting characterization happens, as they are the ones that read like actual people and not seething horny slabs of flesh. I did feel the one loss that occurs.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being horny, this is the kind of book where that would be appropriate in my opinion, but I personally need a bit more of oomph if I'm supposed to want Person A and Person B to end up together. Which I didn't, because they were boring. At least, the reveal itself at the end wasn't! I had a small moment of realization that did feel gratifying because half of that reveal was a theory of mine.

The vibes were the main force pushing me forwards, because they're strong in this book. Drake's prose is polished (I found a couple of typos, but that's something I'd mention to the editing and publishing teams) and purposeful. Her control over how much information she decides to reveal (until that mess at the end) and masterful deliveries are a thing to behold. I'm on the fence whether to give her another try at some point in the future.

All in all, I'd say that Dead By Dusk is a decent read if you're interested in a giallo movie with vampires.

My current read is Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton.