Book Review: F. E. Heaton's "Prophecy: Child of Light"

After receiving my kindle I decided to find myself a nice cheap eBook on Amazon to test it out. At the time, I was about to embark on a week of writing essays to meet my final deadlines at uni. The book I would choose would of course be read after it was all over so when I saw Prophecy: Child of Light I was sold. It was cheap (69p!), from the fantasy section and above all about vampires: it was perfect.

The majority of the blurb, the rest that got cut off:

Prophecy: Child of Light is part one in an epic tale of love and war that is sure to capture your heart and leave you craving more.

“A vampire unlike any other" and an "epic tale of love of war": fighting words if I’ve ever seen any (coming from a blurb anyway..) At this point, the blurb alone leaves you full of expectation. Luckily for me, I didn't care too much for the blurb and went in expecting nothing. So when I reached 100% read on my kindle and Heaton had failed to live up to the hype of the blurb, I wasn't surprised.

Prophecy is unique to her world alone; in the real world, Prophecy is just one of many. Vampire novels not only run in abundance in book shops worldwide, within the past few years hundred of authors have spewed out even more following the "vampires are cool" bandwagon. As a result, a unique vampire book had to be something new for even the averagest of joes. My own love (bordering on obsession) of vampires was at it's peak during highschool. So, to me Prophecy’s story felt very familiar and predictable. Heaton like many other authors recycles general plot and story points. As a result I found myself able to prophesise (haha I couldn’t help myself ^^) what would happen next.

The book is written from the perspective of the main characters: Prophecy and of Valentine. Despite being the protagonist of the novel, I couldn’t relate to Prophecy at all. Sure, she’s a vampire and I'm a human so there's not much to relate to at first glance, but any good protagonist (whatever the species) should be able to draw the reader in. I found her to be an annoying character and only continued to read the book because I was rooting for Valentine. His past and history seemed much more interesting than Prophecy's story. I can’t help but wonder how much better the book could have been if written entirely from his perspective.

On a positive note, I did find myself moved slightly by our main couple’s passion towards each other. I wouldn’t call this much of a feat though considering that I’m a pushover when it comes to fictional romance.

All in all, the book fulfilled the task I had for it: it was an easy read. It’s not a must read and in no way is it a must own but if you’re looking for something to simply pass the time, or you want a mindless read to take your mind off a heavier book –perhaps a classic or better yet, a real epic– it’ll do the job.

Originally written and posted on 30/07/2011 @ Novel Nerds

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