Review of For the Love of a Vampire by M. Leighton

Title: For the Love of a Vampire (Blood Like Poison, #1)
Author: M. Leighton
Published by: Self Published
Pages: 278
Source: Obtained free from Amazon (on 12/27/2012)
Format: ebook
Rating: 2 stars

Summary from Goodreads: Like most seventeen year olds, Ridley Heller thought she had her future all planned out. What she wanted most in life was to get out of small town Harker. Her only goal was to keep her mouth shut and her grades high so she could win a cheerleading scholarship to Stanford. But that was before she met Bo. 

In Ridley’s wildest dreams, she could never have planned for someone like Bo, for a love so intense it left her breathless. No human girl could.

A haunting stranger that watched her from afar, Bo stole Ridley’s heart from the moment she laid eyes on him. But he has secrets. Bo’s a vampire. Both his past and his present are a danger to Ridley, but the biggest threat is not her blood; it’s her heart. He’s feeding a thirst for revenge that will cost him his life, and it may already be too late. 

The more darkness Ridley uncovers, the more she realizes that her life will never be the same—with or without Bo. Can she sacrifice her future and her heart for someone who has a death wish?

M. Leighton brings a different twist to the typical young-adult vampire love story.  

While we are all used to the typical girl meets cute mysterious boy, but soon realizes something is different about him story, For the Love of a Vampire adds a interesting twist.  Bo's father was killed a while ago and now he's out for revenge, but the act of the revenge itself is literally killing him. 

I liked that Bo wasn't a happy-go-lucky kind of guy.  He's a bit dark and a lot mysterious, but he's actually a great guy underneath it all...um well, besides the whole revenge thing.  He makes Ridley not only want to be a better person, but to actually act like one too. She's not living the easiest life and she tries to coast through by just ignoring everything around her.  Her 'friends' are actually quite horrible people.  I don't like conflict or anything, but I don't think I could have just sat there a let them talk like that or get anyway with things they did.  I felt like this was a good example of peer pressure and how wanting to be like everyone else sometimes causes you to ignore things that are blatantly wrong and hurtful.  I'm not condoning anyone's  behavior, but I'm sure this is something that happens is school everyday and I'm glad that the author showed this is unacceptable and something needs to be done.  By saying nothing to bullies you are encouraging them without using words.  I'll stop ranting now...    

This novel started out really well.  I liked the internal conflict that was going on with Ridley between who she truly was and how she outwardly acted.  I even liked originally meeting Bo and him challenging her to do what was right, however, the story kind of deteriorated from there.  There was huge case of insta-love between Ridley and Bo and I just didn't get it.  They were not connected in anyway that I knew of and yet they were in love by the second day.  That was just too much for me and it seemed to override everything else happening in the story.  The plot was interesting, but I felt like everything happened too fast and with not enough detail.  The whole thing, their romance and the conflict, seemed to speed along without the reader getting to savor what was happening.    

I think this would have been a great story if Ridley and Bo's relationship slowly built as the story continued as well as, flushing out more of the conflict.  M. Leighton was creative with her character's circumstances and the plot behind the story, which brings a lot to the table, however, it just didn't come together for me.