Crimson City (Crimson City #1) is a 2005 supernatural romance novel written by Liz Maverick and published by Love Spell.  Set as the first installment in the Crimson City series and follows vampire Fleur Dumont, who struggles to attain her family’s legacy after the murder of her brothers, and Dain Reston, a B-Ops member struggling with his own inner demons, as the two of them attempt to solve the murder of her brothers.

Positives:

• Good writing
• Good lead characters
• Good world building

Negatives:

• Predictable story
• Slow story progression
• Repetitive info-dumping

Plot:  The story follows Fleur Dumont, after the wake of the assassination of the leaders of the vampire community, in which she is spared.  Assigned to the case is Dain Reston, a human police officer, who is suffering from amnesia and the brutal death of his late wife.  The two must put their dislikes aside and work together to discover who is behind the attack. Despite the exciting beginning act with Fleur taking on three vampires the story does get pretty slow.  There are some moments where the story gets pretty predictable but it does have its share of interesting twists. (3 out of 5)

Characters:  The story mainly focuses on vampire, Fleur Dumont, and B-Ops agent, Dain Reston.  Fleur is a vampire princess basically who falls into succession to the throne after the murder of her brothers by a mysterious mech.  Because vampires are dicks they write off Fleur as Vampire Queen because she previously turned a human into a vampire who went rogue. She’s a strong female character though not really overbearing.  Dain is a B-Ops human who suffers from amnesia dealing with some inner demons.  The survivor of a vampire attack; sucks he doesn’t remember the wife he had who was killed by the vampires.  Despite his dislike of vampires, he has this attraction to Fleur, who actually reciprocates. I understand being attracted to someone but don’t really like the “I can’t stop thinking about you must see you again” ploy.  It’s way too unrealistic.  The two characters are alright, didn’t really feel connected to them because they seem a little self-destructive, but they have enough personality and depth to make them standout.  There aren’t any other characters worth mentioning. (3 out of 5)

Writing:  How the writing establishes the setting, feels more like a comic book…like it’s a mixture between Twilight, Underworld and Sin City.  Maverick does a good job with the writing although a bit slow, still engaging. It does maintain a good amount of tension, especially with the events surrounding Fleur.  The romance built between the two doesn’t feel entirely believable especially when Fleur’s fascination with humans seem to be her driving force. Some points that could’ve been touched upon better is the exposition.  The exposition concerning vampire and human society does feel like a massive info dump that should’ve been better shown rather than told.  This also applies to the reveal of Dain and Fleur’s past which I would’ve liked to have seen it come out a little later on. The vampires are all nearly written off as exceptionally flat.  The one sex scene does feel like it helps the romance between the two with being a distraction or overly graphic. (2 out of 5)

The Verdict:  In the end, Crimson City (Crimson City #1) is a decent read and good introduction to the series.  Despite some of the issues concerning the exposition and slow progression of the story, the characters are good, story interesting, deep setting, and good writing.  Crimson City (Crimson City #1) gets 3 out of 5.