Review and Giveaway: Kiss of the Butterfly by James Lyon

Title: Kiss of the Butterfly
Author: James Lyon
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Self-published
Publish Date: July 22, 2012
Source: I received a copy from the author; however, this did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You're a fiction fan.
• You like vampires that are actually scary (i.e. they don't sparkle)

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "'The smell of blood is in the air, I sense it even now. People thirst for it; the entire country is mad with desire for it. And now we are going to war with our brothers because they look like us, and because we can smell our blood coursing through their veins...' A mysterious letter starts a university student on a journey into the war-torn lands of rapidly disintegrating Yugoslavia. Naively trusting his enigmatic professor, the student unwittingly descends into a dystopian crucible of decay, destruction, passion, death, romance, lust, immorality, genocide, and forbidden knowledge promising immortality. As the journey grows ever more perilous, he realizes he must confront an ancient evil that has been once again loosed upon the earth: from medieval Bosnia to enlightenment-era Vienna, from the bright beaches of modern-day Southern California to the exotically dark cityscapes of Budapest and Belgrade, and horrors of Bosnia."

My Two Cents:


"Kiss of the Butterfly" is part mystery and part thriller. There is even a little bit of historical fiction in there my fellow historical fiction lovers (the book takes place in 1990s, the 18th, and 15th centuries). There are vampires but these most definitely are not your sparkly, brooding vampires (okay, they might be brooding but they're actually a little scary). Lyon weaves in Balkan folklore to bring the vampire myths to life. Guys, I really love books based on folktales. They are so interesting! It's so interesting to me to see how someone takes an old story and turns it into something really different and special. Before this book, I was really not familiar with the Balkan vampire folklore, other than Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. the one and only Dracula) but let me tell you, it is completely fascinating! It's even harder to take historical events and weave them together with such a myth so that the events still seem completely real and plausible!

I love the setting of the book, especially the parts set in the 1990s. If you'll remember, the early 1990s were a really difficult time in the Balkan regions. There was total chaos because of the Bosnian War, which was in full swing. So many different countries were included. Lyon weaves in the horror of the vampires with these real life events in a really amazing way. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book!

Overall, I really enjoyed how the book was laid out. Sometimes the detail verged more into the telling rather than the showing, which made the first half of the book initially hard to get into. The upside of all of the detail is that you get a really good sense of the myths behind the story, which is very cool. There is a lot of explaining of the myth and the various locations. The book really picks up in second half with a lot more action and a total escalation of the action in the story. Once the book really gets going, it keeps going fast and furious until the final climax.

This book will definitely appeal to a lot of different kinds of readers. Thrillers are not usually my usual kind of reading but I found a lot to like about this book. I love the history so much!

Giveaway:

I have two ebook copies of the book up for grabs (open internationally)!

 


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