House of Cards has been sitting in my Kindle for a while. As I work through the list and only in my 2013 free Kindle downloads, House of Cards was the next one and I remember downloading it because it had the same name as the TV series but the plot was totally not. To be honest, at this point, I wasn’t even reading the summary again. From the cover, it looked YA paranormal (aka vampires) so hey, I did read the whole Sookie Stackhouse so this is right up my alley. I do love me some vampires.
Let’s check it out!
House of Cards
by: Ilana Waters
Eighteen-year-old Sherry has just begun her newly independent life in Paris when she is kidnapped by a group of vampires. They hold her hostage in the House of Cadamon, their catacomb lair beneath the city, ruled with an iron fist by a leader known as “the Master.” The only thing keeping Sherry alive is her ability to tell vampire fortunes through tarot cards, a task she is forced to perform night after night. She finds an unlikely ally in Lucas, a four-hundred-year-old reluctant blood drinker who is as much a prisoner of Cadamon as she is. –Goodreads
It turns out my deductions are correct, mostly because the cover of the book was positioning the book well. Very nice cover, by the way! I like it quite a bit. While I want to rate a book and sometime even pick up books by their attractive covers, we can’t exactly do that. It means nothing to the story itself. House of Cards is an average YA paranormal vampire romance. There were some good ideas, like using tarot cards and fortune telling to indirectly weave in the vampires in House of Cadamon and even reveal their temperament, especially that of “the Master”. I liked the beautiful setting of Paris and “the Master” having a hold on them and having the freedom but not actually having it so it wasn’t just set underground in the catacombs where House of Cadamon was located.
The story is simple. Its at times a good thing and at times, not so good. For one, its not a long book but in the middle, it dragged out quite a bit as they built the relationship between Sherry and Lucas. I have nothing against romance. In fact, I like reading them. As I was reading House of Cards, I couldn’t help but feel like Lucas and Sherry had the Bella and Edward sort of vibe and I only know it from that one time I watched 70% of New Moon. If you’ve followed my last few reviews of these ebook adventures, I stepped into this one hoping for that it wouldn’t have these steamy sex scenes and then this was all reluctant and craving it all. The point is: Sherry is in this House of Cadamon and I can’t imagine being seventeen year old, on my own, being captured and having been revealed that vampires actually exist and while there was fear, it quickly subsided and became like something totally different. But that is the thing, House of Cards isn’t aimed or made for me so its hard for me to relate in a realistic way and for that, I couldn’t engage into Sherry’s character.
However, the main issue here isn’t even that. I think its the fact that the writing style is not done well. We are looking at everything from Sherry’s perspective but yet its in a third person point of view however, the actions are insinuate towards a first person. Then, deductions and events happen and it would feel awkward to read.
Don’t get me wrong though. House of Cards may not be geared towards me, even if I read a good bit of YA paranormal novels but while it takes time and drags on a little at parts, the ideas here are good. I can understand the appeal of the book and it actually changes from my normal views of YA books. I would’ve preferred a first person perspective and maybe a little more romance action. I don’t mean sex but just kissing or more of that than just desires floating all over the place and feeling like it didn’t really amount to much after all that wait time. If YA and vampire stories appeal to you, its worth a read.
Tranquil Dreams 