Book Review: Die For Me, by Amy Plum (Seventh Book in the 2011 Speculative Fiction Challenge)

ThIs is my seventh review for the

'Speculative Fiction Challenge, 2011'

hosted by Magemanda at Floor to Ceiling Books.

It started in January, and runs through December.

Title: Die For Me
Author: Amy Plum
Format: Hardcover, 341 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: May 10, 2011
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Awards: Voted to the "Summer 2011 Indie Next List", Romance Times top pick for May, 2011




One of the first things that drew me to this book was the beautiful cover.  Next was the setting -- Paris!  I've always wanted to visit that city, and haven't been able to...  It's the quintessentially romantic city, with its beautiful architecture, quaint streets and restaurants, and, of course, the richly flowing tones of the French language....

So off to Paris I went, in my imagination, aided by memories of photos in my French high school books, and a couple of foreign films here and there!

True to its setting, Die For Me is tres romantique (very romantic)!  While I did find some echoes of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight in the relationship between Vincent and Kate, the book's plot is original, as well as suspenseful, enough that I really didn't mind.  Anyway, what I found similar was Vincent's tenderness and adoration for Kate, as well as her admiration for Vincent, and breathless giddiness whenever she was with him.  Isn't this the case with all true lovers?  I for one certainly can't get enough of this! 

Kate and her sister, Georgia, move from Brooklyn to Paris after their parents' sudden death in a freak car accident.  They have decided to live with their French grandparents, in Paris, where they hope to be able to come to terms with their painful memories.  So they start their summer in the lovely French city, to which they have no trouble adjusting, because they're both fluent in French.

Being temperamentally different, they go about their grieving process in very different ways.  Georgia, the more extroverted of the two, immerses herself in the non-stop night life, flitting from party to party, and meeting as many boys as she can, although she doesn't become serious about any of them.  Kate busies herself with classic novels, such as To Kill A Mockingbird and The Age of Innocence, which she loves to read in cafes.  She also frequents art museums, becoming entranced by the works of revered masters.  Oh, I envy this girl...for Paris is not just a romantic city in the sense of being a perfect place for lovers.  It's also romantic in the sense that it's full of aesthetic and intellectual wonders to delight the mind and the senses!

it's in her favorite reading place, the Cafe Saint-Lucie, that Kate first notices  Vincent.  He's with two other boys, and all three are, as she describes them, "...young and beautiful and glowing with the kind of charisma that justified the fact that every woman in the place was under their spell."  Kate looked up from her reading, to find that he was staring at her.  Beautiful, beautiful Vincent...  In her words: "He was breathtaking, with longish black hair waving up and back from a broad forehead."  Her heart flutters suddenly, and they can't stop staring at each other...sigh... Yes, I know, I've read this kind of thing before, with different wording, but essentially the same.  But that's romance.  It always seizes one, catches one unawares.  it's the most wonderful, exciting feeling in the world, and I never get tired of reading about it!  C'est merveilleux (it's wonderful)!!

One strange night, Kate and Georgia, unable to sleep, take a stroll in their neighborhood, and see an unusual sight by the river's banks -- Vincent saving a young girl from drowning, while a sword fight is going on under a bridge spanning the river. 

Thus it is that Kate is introduced to Vincent's world, which is a highly fascinating, if a dangerous, one.  Vincent is a revenant;  in other words, a zombie.  Interesting for me, since I utterly detest zombie fiction -- at least, the kind that might remind me of "Night of the Living Dead"!  That's why I have a "zombie free zone" button near the bottom of this blog.  But,oh, Vincent is not like any of those zombies!  In fact, he's a sort of hero, for he became a revenant because he saved someone's life. 

In this novel, the revenants actually have a compulsion to save people's lives, over and over again.  They have been involved in a war for centuries, too, engaging in periodic skirmishes with evil revenants, known as the numa, who feel just as compelled to kill people, with no remorse or compassion, as the good revenants are to save them.  Kate and her sister unwittingly become involved in this war, so Georgia must also be told the truth about Vincent and his 'family'.

How the author develops this plot, keeping the suspense and the romance going, makes for some very, very addictive reading!  The two leads are just wonderful, and the other characters are very memorably drawn, as well.  I especially love Jules, Ambrose, and Charlotte, while Jean-Baptiste took some getting used to, at first.  The villains are also very convincingly evil, and the action intensifies until a very surprising, rather eerie climax resolves the conflict.  I was certainly not expecting it!

I love the way that Plum interweaves the romantic relationship with all the action.  Kate, who was at first wary of Vincent, in spite of her attraction to him, comes to love him just as deeply as he loves her.  In the midst of all the mayhem, they are always mindful of each other, always connected.  In fact, I can certainly see a movie coming....

This is another one of those novels that I want to re-read.  I want to capture not only the heady feeling of falling in love, but that of the bond shared by the members of this group of supernatural beings, one not unlike that of the Cullens in The Twilight Saga.  I didn't want this book to end so soon...  I didn't want to step out of this strange paranormal world, one that  immediately drew me in, to the point that I would have to mentally shake myself whenever I emerged from a reading session, because I was just as much a part of the mesmerizing, mysterious revenant world as Kate was...

In the words of Aprilynne Pike, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Wings series, "I devoured this lush, mysterious romance, and it delivers a refreshingly human heroine alongside a hero truly deserving of the title."

The story continues with the next book, titled Until I Die, which will be released in May of next year.  I will be sure to get it!
 
So pick up a copy of this book, and dive headfirst into it.  Prepare to be totally enthralled!


MY RATING: