Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This was one of the worst books I've read in a long time and feel duped by the author and publishers. First let me say, this is not a novel to be even remotely compared to the masterfully told tales of Harry Potter. The book was reviewed on NPR and summed up as a "Harry Potter for grown ups." As a result, I thought the book would be cleverly written with a unique take on witches and magic. Instead, this book turned out to be a novel mostly about a brooding vampire (the hero) and an incredibly silly witch (the heroine). This book is nothing more than a romance novel and a poorly constructed one at that. The first few chapters were interesting and full of promise when the book actually seemed to be about a witch who does not use her magic. The heroine, Diana, had spunk, she was charming (excuse the pun), and intelligent. Matthew, the vampire, had an interesting story to tell also, at first. Once they fell in love, the author wrote the character of Matthew as way too over the top in his protectiveness of Diana. Page after page he's telling her to eat, sleep, drink, rest, lie down, take a bath, rest, sleep, eat some more, drink. He even carries her around the way one would carry a toy poodle. She's remarkably weak and tired ALL THE TIME. Diana practices a spell and then all of sudden, she's weak and shaky, needing Matthew to carry her to bed so that she can sleep for the rest of the day. This book takes way too long to get to the point, the author describes every minute detail of the scenery, what Diana is eating, what Diana is wearing, the smells. Jeesh. Every page seemed to have some detail about the scent of Diana or Matthew's cinnamon and cloves scent. The creepiest descriptions were of the witch and vampire kisses. Her warm lips up against his cold lips. Gross. Let me finally add that after the first half or so of the book, the author seems to forget the original idea and goes in a few other directions. I know this is a book about magic but it becomes unrealistic when we learn that Diana possesses all the truly enviable magical gifts and that her 1500 year old boyfriend/vampire was best friends with nearly every great political figure, scientist, pope, etc. If he'd been born earlier I'm sure Jesus Christ would have been a close personal friend. I could go on and on about this boring, pretentious book but I'll stop here. Needless to say, I don't recommend it to anyone.