An entertaining story of vampires, time travel, and a love that lasts through centuries

In The Undead Heart, author Stephanie “Tate” Jackson has crafted a very entertaining story of vampires (or vampyres as used in the novel), time travel, and a love that lasts through centuries.

The story opens with a mysterious man appearing at the high school graduation of our main character, Rebecca Stockdale. Seems this mystery man has appeared in “Beck’s” life before: always in time to save her from accident or injury. With this, the story captured my interest right away.

The novel boasts a vast array of interesting main characters and fresh minor characters that come and go throughout. The variety really gave the story depth and color. I particularly enjoyed Potter, and of the minor characters – Ester.

The settings change from current time in this country to the London of Jack the Ripper, and the Ripper mystery plays a major role in the book. Most of the action, however, occurs in Clarksville, Tennessee.

The execution of the story does have some problems but to me seemed easily fixable. The most problematic for me was the formatting of the dialogue. I found it difficult to follow character conversations when the paragraph would begin with one character speaking and then continue with the other character’s input. I had to reread a LOT to determine if the second bit of the dialogue was continued from the first speaker as it conventionally is, and mostly, it was not. This was almost enough to make me quit reading altogether which would have been a shame; I would have missed out on a good book.

Also, there are grammar problems, verb tense issues, misused words (i.e., the word “to” is continually used when “too” is what is meant, bazaar for bizarre, peaked for piqued.) Not biggies, but these things tend to “throw” me out of the story and interrupt the reading experience. Once again, this kind of thing is easily fixed by using a good editor.

Still, I think if you like vampire stories, time travel, romance with sex scenes, you’ll enjoy this book. However, to get the complete story be prepared for the long haul and the investment of some time. Book 1, The Undead Heart, ends with a cliffhanger and you must get your hands on the second in the trilogy, Blood Thirst to find out what happens next!