It was a difficult journey, reading this book; while the majority of the settings were beautifully described and I was able to picture them quite readily, I could not do the same for the characters - excluding young Ryan, the rael-shaa or wolf shifter. The only thing I took from this first book, is that the protagonist was a whiner that spent the entire book wrapped in self-pity and never truly attempted to try and appreciate benefits to his life, now that he is a vampire. Physical descriptions were offered, but this reader had to work very hard to find any differing personality impressions and quirks; working so hard to figure out a character's personality takes away time one might invest into the actual storyline, and unfortunately, not one of the characters had a truly unique, three dimensional personality that really stood out and was capable of carrying this book in its entirety, in this readers view. The story is told from the perspective of a cruely changed new vampire and seems mainly to focus on his self-loathing and horror over his new form of eating. Jay, the protagonist, deals with the emotional trauma of feeding, of viewing donors essentially as walking meals - his thought of his breakfast eating breakfast when young Naomi is making her first meal of the day, did make me grin. However, Jay works so hard to distance himself from his new lifestyle, he managed to keep this reader too distanced to care about him. The feeding cycle of every nine days was an interesting theory in this Worldwalker world, but not enough to truly capture and allow this reader to be fully immersed into the world. Large sections of this mainly narrative book called to mind textbooks, for this reader, as if she were sitting back in one of her college classrooms being lectured to by a bored professor. Fernstrom mixed genres, which this reader doesn't have a problem with, mixing sci-fi and paranormal romance/mystery... some have called it a thriller, but this reader never read a thing that might be considered within the thriller category. Too much of the book seemed to break the first rule of writing, Show vs Tell. This is where this reader felt the journey was more tedious than thrilling or exciting; Fernstrom told me how horrid Jay felt, she did not show me. If this reader had been allowed to immerse herself into the characters and feel what they feel, it likely would have lived up to the description of the book. Instead, this reader was continually told - not shown - what a traumatic experience it was for Jay to become vampire. This writing style did not appeal to this reader, at all, and she will not be continuing the series; however, a free copy of the book was given in exchange for an honest review. It was not the worse thing this reviewer has ever read, but it was a far cry from the best. ** Review originally posted to Amazon reviews on June 6, 2016. **
