Rosedale The Vampyre Blog Tour: review

Paranormal*ebook, 46 pages

Published June 15th 2012 by Amazon Digital

Grief-stricken by his wife’s untimely death, a wealthy New York banker turns to sexual abandon in the bordellos of 1907 New York. Then one fateful night, after a mysterious attack, he dies to his old life and is reborn a Vampyre. Once obsessed solely with making money and social advancement, he’s now driven by a new, perverse hunger for blood. Written in a period voice, this deeply erotic work takes us into dark corners ofthe psyche as it explores a secret world of power and obsession.

Book Trailer Link

About the Author:

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Lev Raphael is the author of twenty-four books in genres from memoir to mystery to Jane Austen mashup. He’s been in love with storytelling since second grade and a reader of catholic tastes since he discovered his first public library. Lev has published traditionally with large and small houses, and recently gone indie because it’s the wave of the future. His latest fiction, Rosedale the Vampyre, grows out of his love of The Gilded Age. Lev has been a newspaper columnist, a radio talk show host, a DJ and even an academic. He writes and reviews full-time and is currently working on three different book projects.

My thoughts:

Rosedale The Vampyre is not the romantic, swoon-inducing type of bloodsucker so prevalent in today's vampire fiction. He is more of a literate kind of fellow, a thinker, educated, intelligent and accustomed to being treated like a second class citizen. Even before he was turned he was looked down upon by his family and society for being a Jew. His revenge? He became a successful business man during the Gilded Age. Mourning his wife, he walks through their apartment surrounded by the memories of her ghost hanging on the wall, the furniture in the rooms, even the bedding. 

His way of forgetting the pain of being alone, he frequents a brothel, replacing the company of his spouse for a woman who rents herself out by the hour. He is smitten by a French harlot and begins to see her exclusively. As his body changes and he must succumb to the yearning, he seems to revel in the internal struggle he endures. As he accepts what he has become, he begins to enjoy the power of being a bloodsucking creature. More in control of his bodily needs, he visits his prostitute and takes charge, no longer the meek man he once was. 

Lev Raphael captures the tone of the time period with his prose, painting a portrait of a shell of a man who becomes more of a man once he becomes a vampire. Provocative, intense, Rosedale is an intriguing caricature of the popular paranormal romantic character. Do not let the shortness of this novella lead you to believe this is a quick, forgettable story. With Raphael's prose, take the time to read and thoroughly enjoy this novella. It may leave you wanting more. 

Rating: 4