A review by loram
Exsanguinate by Killion Slade
4.0
This one will appeal to gamers, and especially to people interested in creating virtual reality games.
The story starts out with a spine chilling, horrific situation. We meet Cheyenne, one of three sisters with those distinctively American names like Dakota and Savannah (okay, the third sister is called Sheridan, like the hotel), named after places and generally only found in novels *rolls eyes*.
Cheyenne works in the gaming industry in what looks like a not too far off future and making virtual worlds is normal life to her. One particular game has given the users a lot of autonomy and aspects of the virtual world surprise her, as do the supernatural creatures who increasingly inhabit this developing cyberworld. Cheyenne is surprised by the popularity of zombies, vampires, werewolves and other mythological beings from the Horror end of imaginative fiction.
They go to a real life Scream House event with everyone dressed up in costume in an amusement park. Cheyenne worries about security at the event, foreshadowing that something has to go wrong. There are some funny episodes involving Sheridan's costume and I now know what a Ghillie suit is, something meant for hunters to hide out in bushes that could be very fun for such events!
Things take a horrific turn and there is a fair bit of graphic violence so people sensitive to gore and later on rape issues will want to consider this a trigger warning.
Basically this is a Paranormal story which is not a go to genre for me, yet it held my attention. Sometimes the writing seemed amateurish, but the grammar was reasonably good bar a couple of typos and I kept wanting to see where the plot would go.
It ends with a few things unresolved, so the story continues in the next book, but overall most things came to a tidy conclusion and I did enjoy the read enough that I'm considering getting the second book. Not a deep, intellectual read, but plenty of action and some interesting ideas about supernaturals.
The story starts out with a spine chilling, horrific situation. We meet Cheyenne, one of three sisters with those distinctively American names like Dakota and Savannah (okay, the third sister is called Sheridan, like the hotel), named after places and generally only found in novels *rolls eyes*.
Cheyenne works in the gaming industry in what looks like a not too far off future and making virtual worlds is normal life to her. One particular game has given the users a lot of autonomy and aspects of the virtual world surprise her, as do the supernatural creatures who increasingly inhabit this developing cyberworld. Cheyenne is surprised by the popularity of zombies, vampires, werewolves and other mythological beings from the Horror end of imaginative fiction.
They go to a real life Scream House event with everyone dressed up in costume in an amusement park. Cheyenne worries about security at the event, foreshadowing that something has to go wrong. There are some funny episodes involving Sheridan's costume and I now know what a Ghillie suit is, something meant for hunters to hide out in bushes that could be very fun for such events!
Things take a horrific turn and there is a fair bit of graphic violence so people sensitive to gore and later on rape issues will want to consider this a trigger warning.
Basically this is a Paranormal story which is not a go to genre for me, yet it held my attention. Sometimes the writing seemed amateurish, but the grammar was reasonably good bar a couple of typos and I kept wanting to see where the plot would go.
It ends with a few things unresolved, so the story continues in the next book, but overall most things came to a tidy conclusion and I did enjoy the read enough that I'm considering getting the second book. Not a deep, intellectual read, but plenty of action and some interesting ideas about supernaturals.