Amber Fang: Hunted by Arthur Slade

Amber Fang enjoys life's simple pleasures - a good book, a glass of wine and, of course, a great meal.
Raised to eat ethically, Amber dines only on delicious, cold-blooded killers. But being sure they’re actually killers takes time… research… patience.
It’s a good thing Amber’s a librarian. Her extraordinary skills help her hunt down her prey, seek out other vampires, and stay on the trail of her mother, missing now for two years. One day she stalks a rather tasty-looking murderer and things get messy. Very messy. Amber, the hunter, becomes the hunted.
And then, from out of nowhere, the perfect job offer: Assassin. She’d be paid to eat the world’s worst butchers. How ideal.
Until it isn’t. 

This book falls into the category of stories that sounded great until they weren’t. The beginning is done well: Amber is tracked down and offered a confusing job from a mysterious organization. Everything goes downhill from there. Her only contact from the organization is confusing; she trusts him a whole lot, yet they have basically no relationship at all. Half the time, he’s mysteriously busy and can’t talk to her, and the other half he betrays her. Not really sure why Amber has convinced herself that he’s on her side. The organization itself is not explained at all; all we know is that they are really powerful. Amber walks into several situations that are questionable at best, and is quick to forgive the people that keep manipulating her over and over again. For a calculating killer, she sure makes a lot of bad decisions.

The vampire aspect of this story is well-done, it’s the hired assassin part that makes little to no sense. Amber knows her vampire biology, she knows how and when to kill. By willingly placing herself under humans, she suffers needlessly, and doesn’t really kill all those many bad guys.

And the ending really pushed my buttons. After all she’s been put through, Amber still tries to find a peaceful way out, and still doesn’t clearly put her foot down… What seemed like a sarcastic, witty look at vampires in the modern day turned into another muddled adventure story that tried to keep the reader interested with flashy fight scenes. This book could have been better if it hadn’t tried to be so special. If it had slipped into some familiar Men-in-Black type spy/assassin storylines, it would have been much more enjoyable.

This book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.