Reviews

Daylight by Elizabeth Knox

tessaays's review

3.0

Trademark Knoxian - evocative and lyrical but so in its own world that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Knox writes so casually about various elements of vampiricism that it slows you down (rather than pulls you in, like magic realism does) because you’re constantly just doing these little double takes.
Having said that, it was a memorable read. I haven’t read much vampire literature as it’s not really my wheelhouse but this was a fun introduction.

lem119's review against another edition

3.0

This is the fourth of Elizabeth Knox's books that I've read, and it confirms that her biggest strength is in her ability to create setting and atmosphere. Like The Vintner's Luck and The Angel's Cut (both of which I liked better than this book, although I preferred it over Billie's Kiss), this story puts supernatural creatures into a richly-described historical time period, although this one also has several storylines that occur in modern times. In this book, the creature of choice is vampires, and although Knox uses the typical vampire lore (averse to light, sucks blood erotically) as the basis of her myth, she takes some interesting twists in this story about a caver, a Jesuit priest, an artist's widow, and their connections to a vampire named Dawn. I occasionally found it difficult to follow all of the interconnecting and diverging storylines, as it sometimes seemed as though the action was jumping from time period to time period within a single chapter or even passage, and I never really felt an emotional connection to these characters as I have in some of her other books (*cough* Xas—and although I said I would put this above Billie's Kiss, I was far more interested in the protagonist of that book than I was in Brian "Bad" Phelan). However, as usual, Knox's prose was beautiful and she really delved into creating the backdrop, so the richness of the writing made up for what was lacking in the story and characters.

milla_k's review against another edition

4.0

As far as vampire novels go, this one wasn't too shabby. It respects the general rules of light allergy and blood addiction, while it innovates with some new ideas and concepts. I loved a lot of the characterization, though it seemed the author spent more time developing the personalities and backgrounds of secondary characters, primarily Daniel. That was fine with me, since I thought the secondary characters were a little more interesting. The protagonist, Bad, gets practically no screen time, and we are only given only one strong backstory, which is then supposed to give you all you need to decipher every trait he has.
All in all, the backdrop of the French coast and provinces was beautifully done, the small details of the plot were clever and enticing. All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I'd kill to be able to eat some of the things described... Besides the blood, that is.