All Hail the Vampire Queen

Infinite Days


Written by: Rebecca Maizel

Released: August 3, 2010 by St. Martin’s Griffin

Summary: Lenah Beaudonte is, in many ways, your average teen: the new girl at Wickham Boarding School, she struggles to fit in enough to survive and stand out enough to catch the eye of the golden-boy lacrosse captain. But Lenah also just happens to be a recovering five-hundred-year-old vampire queen. After centuries of terrorizing Europe, Lenah is able to realize the dream all vampires have -- to be human again. After performing a dangerous ritual to restore her humanity, Lenah entered a century-long hibernation, leaving behind the wicked coven she ruled over and the eternal love who has helped grant her deep-seated wish.
Until, that is, Lenah draws her first natural breath in centuries at Wickham and rediscovers a human life that bears little resemblance to the one she had known. As if suddenly becoming a teenager weren’t stressful enough, each passing hour brings Lenah closer to the moment when her abandoned coven will open the crypt where she should be sleeping and find her gone. As her borrowed days slip by, Lenah resolves to live her newfound life as fully as she can. But, to do so, she must answer ominous questions: Can an ex-vampire survive in an alien time and place? What can Lenah do to protect her new friends from the bloodthirsty menace about to descend upon them? And how is she ever going to pass her biology midterm?

Oh my god, only in realizing that this was a 2010 debut book and that I didn’t have it listed with my other debuts made me realize that I hadn’t even written a review to go with it. And I finished reading this book MONTHS ago! I’m talking, beginning of September. So excuse me if this review is a little vague since it has been a while and with several books in-between since I gazed upon these pages.

I enjoyed Lenah as a character. I thought her witty and with a timeless charm that worked both with and against her. I loved how devoted she was, though conflicted since she wanted to life an actual life, but also how she literally laid her own life on the line to save those who she loved.

The characters in general with this book were great, though I wasn’t all that taken with Justin and his motley crew. I wish that there had been more with Lenah’s friend who was the artist and I can’t remember his name nor look it up since I loaned this book out to a friend. No matter, I really loved him and I wish that he had been expanded on more or made into a vampire (he wasn’t, was he? I didn’t forget that part did I?).

Unfortunately, my memory is a little fuzzy on the details of the book, but I know that I want to desperately read the next in the series because I need to know if/when Lenah finds Rhode and if he’s still there for her. Wait, did that just spoil some of the book? Sorry if it did, but I figure that since the sequel is up it can’t do that much harm.

Anyways, I give this book a well-rounded 8/10. I thought that it was rather great and I can’t wait to read more.