Jocular Press, $0.99, ISBN 978-1311513908
Fantasy Romance, 2014
Clare London’s Out of Time is not an erotic romance, despite what the cover may suggest. It’s the story of two vampires, Ambrus and Edward, as they first meet when Edward was a soldier in the trenches during the first world war, and over the centuries when they go from hot to cold to finally, a calmer kind of acceptance that they’re bonded and, I guess, in love.
That’s basically the story. It’s almost old school in an Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles kind of way, with an emphasis on blather and yammer than the more to-be-expected vampire flailing and dry humping.
In a way, I like this approach, as it’s a nice change from the usual tropes of a vampire romance. However, the foundation of the two leads’ relationship, however, is still rather contrived in a “vampires are always so horny, of course they naturally want to hump one another” way. Maybe the author had a bus to catch or something, but the some short cuts have been taken to jump start the romance between these two vampires, and I never manage to buy that these two have some kind of concrete bond as a result. Maybe I’m just old school, but I like some conversations and getting to know one another a bit first in my romances before the two leads start riding the lust train.
Also, while the story isn’t bad in any way, I feel that the length of the story prevents it from achieving any kind of greatness. Sure, Ambrus and Edward discuss some philosophical stuff when they meet, as vampires tend to get all emo and brooding after centuries of boredom, but they never actually go deeper than superficial level discourses. Hence, the whole thing doesn’t become interesting, if I am being honest here. I feel like I’m reading a kid’s first effort at angst-filled poetry and can only go, “Yeah, yeah, kid, that’s deep, now go try smoking weed or something.”
Hence, on one hand, I don’t mind Out of Time because it tries to be different from the more formulaic vampire romances out there, but on the other hand, it could try to be a little bit more interesting. There are some good things here, but they never get the development they deserve to be something more memorable. Maybe the author did run out of time while working on this thing, and that’s a shame.
