The Dark Heroine: Dinner with a Vampire Review

One moment can change your life forever…

For Violet Lee, a chance encounter on a darkened street draws her into a world beyond her wildest imaginings, a timeless place of vast elegance and immeasurable wealth – of beautiful mansions and lavish parties – where a decadent group of friends live for pleasure alone. A place from which there is no escape… no matter how hard Violet tries.

Yet all the riches in the world can’t mask the darkness that lies beneath the gilded surface, embodied in the charismatic but dangerous Kaspar Varn.

Violet and Kaspar surrender to a passion that transcends their separate worlds – but it’s a passion that comes at a price…


I had heard nothing about The Dark Heroine by Abigail Gibbs until it was recommended to me by a friend and fellow book blogger who thought I would enjoy it.  THEN, all the hype came out through the national press.  Why the hype? Because Abigail started writing this when she was fifteen (having been inspired by the likes of Twilight but felt there should be more blood and gore), and started posting snippets of it on Wattpad where she gleamed millions of followers.  Unfortunately, the readers never got to find out what happened in the end but now that the book has been picked up by a major publisher, they finally can. 

At 522 pages, the Advance Reader Copy (ARC) is a big book but I devoured it in a day as I could not stop reading.  I really enjoyed the story, particularly when we came to learn why the book is titled as it is but unfortunately, there were a lot of negatives that I struggled with along the way.

Firstly, I did not feel the writing was tight enough or polished enough which is a shame considering but there’s definitely potential there.

Secondly, I realise this is an ARC but as such, whilst it may contain some errors, it should be as ready as it can be for the reader.  What I found was a manuscript that looked like it had not been edited AT ALL.  Besides all the usual spelling and grammar mistakes, I was shocked to find glaringly obvious plot holes and I became very frustrated with all the inconsistencies and constantly flipping back and forth to check out facts.   Don’t get me wrong, I do actually ENJOY doing that when I know I’m doing it as a job but as a reader, NO.  JUST NO.  I ended up e mailing the publishers with the list of errors and was assured that the majority of them had been dealt with for the ACTUAL publication so obviously I cannot vouch for whether this is the case as I do not have the time or inclination to trawl through the kindle version which was released just days later.

Whilst there was a semi explicit sex scene in the book, I definitely do not agree with the bold statement that this is “the sexiest romance you’ll read this year”, not by a long shot (have you SEEN the books I read? lol).  In fact, I was concerned that Violet was generally abused throughout the entire book and some of that was from the love interest!  I guess you have to remember that he is a vampire after all and he has a dark nature by his very definition.

This has to be one of the most difficult reviews I’ve ever written because despite the near constant frustration and the not-so-perfect-writing, I STILL enjoyed the story and this is the first time I’ve read a 522 page book in a day.  Abigail Gibbs may be young but she certainly has potential and I would be very interested in reading the next book and watching her grow as a writer.

The Dark Heroine was published on 11th October, 2012 in the UK and will be published on 5th March, 2013 in the US.  Abigail Gibbs doesn’t appear to have her own website at the moment but she is active on social network sites.