A Vampire's Heart

Ellowyn Found, Book 1

By: Kayleigh Sky

Narrated by: Darcy Stark

Vampires live.

And they hunger....

Otto Jones, a cop assigned to the seemingly random murder of a vampire, would rather hide out in the nearest bar than waste his time on a dead vamp. He hates the bloodthirsty demons. But when the king of the vampires commands him to work with one of the lesser princes and find the killer, he has no choice.

Prince Jessamine Senera is ready to sacrifice his happiness in a loveless marriage for his family’s benefit...but not yet. He dreams of adventure, excitement, and true love. He lives on romance novels and detective stories and wishes he could drink synthetic blood like every other vampire. But he can’t. He needs human blood to survive and is hated by vampires and humans alike.

As Otto and Jessa draw closer to an entity that doesn’t want to be discovered, Otto finds the heart he thought long dead opening to the romance-loving Jessa. No good can possibly come from falling in love with a vampire, but when a shadowy assailant attacks Jessa, Otto will descend into the darkest pit of the earth to rescue him.

If you like vampires, mythical and urban settings, intense suspense, and happily-ever-after, then you’ll love this first book in the dark and mysterious Ellowyn Found trilogy!

A Vampire’s Heart is a stand-alone paranormal dystopian noir romance with a satisfying conclusion to the love story and a central mystery that weaves the trilogy together.

©2018 Kayleigh Sky (P)2019 Kayleigh Sky

Mystery and slow burn romance

This book surprised me. It's my first read from this author and first listen from this narrator.

I am impressed with the world building. A world with vampires living among humans, after an epic war between two species.
I can see the parallelism between the real world and the fictional societal issues we face. Divide between races, discrimination, trying to get everybody to conform.
However, there are time that I get confused too. There are moments where it felt like information after information were just being dumped.

I like a good mystery. This book definitely has it. But can Otto's bitter resentment and anger towards what happened to Maisie be limited? Yes, what happened to Maisie was horrible.. but it felt like it was too repetitive.
Otto seemed like every move he makes is all about Maisie and couldn't see out of his own prejudice and his own dark cloud of bitterness and resentment.
I adore Jessa. A true romantic who is under the protective umbrella of his family and a fiance who really doesn't accept him as he is, but rather wanted to use him as a stepping stone for his social climbing ways.

It was definitely a slow burn for this two. The audio is long, 11 plus hours. It felt so slow. However, when they got together, it was worth those hours!

I didn't realize this was a series, but now that I know it is, I can't wait to see where this series leads.

Great story

I very much enjoyed A Vampires Heart. Kayleigh Sky is a new to me author...she did a great job with this story. I found the characters and plot to be very well thought out and interesting. Darcy Stark did a fantastic job with the narration. I always enjoy the books he performs.

Oooo vampires!!

This was an interesting story to listen too. I loved the plot and the idea of vampires in this type of role. The narrator made me fall in love with the characters, and brought the author’s vision to life! Definitely a great listen!

An Intriguing Approach...

This is my first time reading anything from this author, Kayleigh Sky, and I have to admit that I was enthralled with the approach taken to tell a new take on vampires and their world. The author provided a ton of information in the story that laid the foundation for an excellent tale, with hopefully more to follow. I am a fan. Additionally, the narrator, Darcy Stark was phenomenal and added so much to the story. The inflections that he incorporated into telling the story literally put chills on my arm...point in case...the fog! There is so much more there and I cannot wait to find out about it. The two protagonists, Otto and Jesse were adorably damaged but enlightened to the possibilities out there...well, maybe not Otto in the beginning, but at least he figured it out. This story has intrigue, mystery, murder, discovery, hot sex, and the emergence of love. I look forward to listening to the rest of the series, once they are made available. Loved this!

Secrets..

Otto Jones is a cop that struggles with his job and his life in general. He feels extreme guilt over the death of his older sister at the hands of an unknown vampire and for the last ten years has been unable to move on from her murder. His new partner is not helping as he is a vampire and none other than the detective that investigated her death and who Otto holds responsible for her case going unsolved.
When Otto is given the case of a murdered vampire with a missing human witness there are many similarities to his sister's death and Otto is left questioning if they are somehow connected.

Prince Jessamine is a half human/half vampire whose body has rejected the synthetic blood that most vampires drink to survive. He is known as a drainer and must wear a mark to let others know of his condition. He is looked at as weaker and someone of lower status by most vampires. Jessa is engaged to another vampire but they have no real connection beyond his fiance's ambition to join a higher ranking family and Jessa's need to relieve his family of what he perceives as a burden.

Jessa is asked to work with Otto as a go between to ease tensions between humans and vampires. Jessa, a romantic at heart is captivated by Otto from their first encounter and Otto sees Jessa as beautiful and strong and someone he wants even though Jessa is a vampire and engaged to someone else.

Otto and Jessa are beautiful in the devotion and tenderness they show each other even when they see no possible future together. The heat and desire between them burns hot and lights up this story in no way taking away from it but only enhancing an already detailed and exciting book.
I enjoyed Darcy Stark's narration of this book.

I received a copy of this audiobook but this is my honest review.

Vampire Mystery

Otto a jaded cop who hates vampires is partnered with Jessa a super sweet drainer vampire to solve a vampires murder. This is a slow burn mystery. There is a lot of world building so it took a little bit to understand all that was going on. This is an interesting, complex story. The slow development of the relationship between Otto and Jessa is a great accompaniment to the story. If you like a good mystery with a love story you'll enjoy this book. I would consider this a HFN, the love story reaches a satisfying conclusion, but the overall mystery is not fully resolved and will continue in other books. Narration was really good. It was a new narrator to me, but I really liked him.

The beginning was confusing for me to follow.

The first couple of chapters almost made me quite listen to this book. I’m not a big follower of vampire stories. Mentioning the different levels of families and all the folklore kind of threw me off. Once it got into the story with the killing and the MCs meeting made it easier to follow. I end up enjoying it a lot. Now that I’m hooked I hope there more coming for the other side characters.

A must read for all you vampire lovers

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Both the narrator and the author are new to me and I can't wait for more from both of them. My only real issues were Otto constantly thinking about Maisie, its been 10 years yes I know her murder is still unsolved but it felt like every thought was of her. And I was having a problem with keeping all the names straight. Initially I didn't like Otto, he just rubbed me the wrong way, but it didn't take too long before I fell for him. Jessa I loved from the moment he stepped onto page. Jessa is a "drainer" someone who has to drink from humans and is allergic to the synth blood. He is such a romantic & all he wants is to love & be loved. He is engaged to Wen, an arraigned marriage, & has resigned himself to having a loveless marriage. Wen isn't bad to him and isn't disgusted by Jessa's need to drink blood from donors. There are so many secondary characters that I liked. Both Jessa's brother & sister, the king and Issac his donor. One of the sort of bad guy (you will see what I mean about "sort of" when you read the story) I knew was involved from the beginning. There wasn't anything obvious, I just had that feeling. So we have the investigation of a string of murders. Otto does something, and gets fired. The king hires him to investigate the killings and pushes Jessa to help Otto out. Otto, who despises vampires, is immediately drawn to Jessa & start thinking of him as his mate. Otto tries to deny his attraction.
Jessa is also immediately attracted to Otto. Okay for those of you who are turned off about cheating, which I absolutely hate, there isn't any cheating. Jessa & Wen haven't bonded yet & they are free to do what they want until then. Again, it's arraigned not because they love each other. As they get closer to figure out who is involved in the murders and why, they also get closer together until they give into their desires. I really loved these two as a couple and the sex was off the charts hot IMO. I can't wait to continue with this series.

Audio ARC provided by LesCourt Services in exchange for an honest review.

Cliche and poorly wrapped up

The world building is great and the premise has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, poor plotting ruins it. The mystery is solved practically through ESP, entirely without clues and no real explanation for anything. Cliché and nonsense buzz-lines ruin the tension during dramatic scenes, and vague descriptions of action and locations make it unclear what is going on when it isn't explained in dialog. The glossing of the topics make it seem like the author did no research on alcoholism or fighting and so those elements are weak and turn one of the main characters into a virtual characture that's hard to empathize with. Fantastic, professional work by the voice actor made it possible to finish but didn't redeem the story.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one...

Kayleigh, different and I liked it. It took on some darkness that is so vampiric it took me by pleasant surprise. I liked the antagonism you created in the characters and the development became wonderfully interesting the more I got into it. Good job...

Darcy, I really enjoyed your interpretation of these characters. I look very forward to hearing more from you.

Listener, This is a very different kind of vampire story that I enjoyed the more I got into it. It took 3-4 chapters for me, but once I did, I was engulfed into the story and characters. I wish the other books were on Audible, but I have to say, I will get the next one and read it if these don't come out soon on audible.