Series Review: Almost Human

This time, I'm going to review a self published author, Melanie Nowak's Almost Human (1st Trilogy) series (http://www.melanienowak.com/).  Okay, I admit it.  I got drawn into the whole Twilight world and really liked it.  There, I said it.  After I was done reading that series, I craved other similar series and did a bit of digging.  During my digging, I found this one.

Although written before Twilight, it does have a similar feel.  The differences are that the heroine is in college and the situations are a bit more "real".  Real as in, there's a 300 year old vampire, of course he's had a few relationships and even fallen in love before.  I mean, come on...

Whenever I read a self published author, such as this, my brain shifts a bit.  Typically (not always) there are going to be typeos, grammatical errors and just the odd thing here and there.  And yes, you do get those, but there are less than I expected.  It's definitely not polished by editors and the like, but for not having that polish, it's not bad.

Overview - A few annoying things come to mind. In particular, she uses bold for emphasis instead of italics.  For whatever reason, that just bothered me (probably more than it should have).  Also, the books are really not stand alone AT ALL.  The series is really just one big book broken out into three parts.

Otherwise, I got my whiney teenage girl/moody vampire fix.  The plot itself drags out a bit, but is pretty solid.  The writing could use some polish, but I was able to get through it.

Note that the plan is to have multiple "trilogies" in the same world but with focus on various characters.  She's currently working on the 2nd Almost Human Trilogy.

Fatal Infatuation - Felicity goes away to college.  She'd been protected her whole life and this is her chance to finally sprout those wings and go out on her own.  She soon finds herself completely alone and a little bit pathetic.  She gets a job, meets a guy, has a run in with a few vampires (Sindy), another vampire (Cain) saves her, yada, yada, yada.

Cain is an elder vampire who has found religion.  He has a mission to convert all the other vampires to drink from animals or at least not kill the poor helpless humans.  If they don't, he kills them.

Of course, the hero and heroine cross paths and are hopelessly attracted to each other and he has to protect his new love interest from the evil Sindy.

Lost Reflections - Here's where you get the skinny on Cain and find out more about the vampire culture and inner workings.  Venom is explained further as well as how to turn humans into vampires.  I do have to admit that the explanation of how everything works is pretty detailed.  However, Cain's story felt a bit forced.

Evolving Ecstasy - The final book that wraps everything up for Felicity and Cain.  I won't spoil anything, but the ending struck me as odd.  Not Cain's part, that actually made sense to me and was a lot more realistic.  No, Felicity's part was what made me think, "Really?"  It just struck me as really soon and fickle.  Then of course, there's a teaser for the next trilogy.

Conclusion - If you liked Twilight, you'll probably like this as well.  However, there are sexual scenes, more violence and more adult situations.  It is not a YA series.

If you don't like Twilight or unpolished work annoys you, it might not be for you.