Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
SYNOPSIS
Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her - the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Saga.
To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University - where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans ans vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos - even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill susenyos at all costs.
When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat - and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love - and the blood it requires.
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When will publishers learn to stop comparing a book to the great ones that come before it? A mix between Cruel Prince and Ninth House this was not. Yes, they both take place at a university, and yes, there is DEFINITE enemies to lovers… but similarities end there and the marketing of this book did the story itself as well as the author such a disservice. (vent over). I personally didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought but a lot of it boiled down to personal preference. The writing was fantastic and the world had a lot of depth and I LOVED that the author built a world entirely on the premise of Black vampires from Ethiopian roots. Vampires are always so pale and sparkly and I’m loving the change up to diverse vampires because there are so many other cultures that have legends of similar monsters that we have not explored nearly enough. Kidan and Susenyos were our main characters and had an… interesting dynamic. You haven’t seen ENEMIES to lovers until you’ve seen these two. Kidan is very much the epitome of hypocrisy when we meet her and Susenyos is the representation of everything she hates and yet everything that reflects her true self. I loved seeing that dynamic but I don’t think it was carried out as well as it could have been.
We start off with Kidan hiding out after having just committed murder. Yes, you read that right. She believes a vampire took her sister and resorts to torture and death to get answers no matter the innocence of those she hurts. This is a big part of her characterization and I could get on board with it, if it was clear that our main character is going through a villain arc. But it’s not clear and even having read the entire book, I’m still unclear on whether we were supposed to be on her side…. I had a really hard time being in Kidan’s head right from the start. She very much was a fictional/fantasy world representation of the bigotry we see in our world today and the hypocrisy and blind hatred for an entire species despite evidence to the contrary was difficult to read. Which I think was the point, but I didn’t want to be reading from that point of view and because of how hateful being in Kidan’s head was, I ended up spiralling into a bit of a reading slump and this book took me two weeks to finish. I dreaded being back in her head. Susenyos, on the other hand was the perfect morally corrupt love interest and his and Kidan’s dynamic was the most interesting part of this book. The pure loathing to slow trusting was marvellous.
The magic system of this book was extremely intricate and I really enjoyed it slowly unravelling throughout the book, discovering new things as we went on and pieces slowly clicking into place on how the magic worked. A lot of the history of this world and the university is derived from Ethiopian myth and legend and there’s quite a bit of mention of history and artifacts from North Africa. In the book there’s an ancient pack between Vampires and humans that’s slightly (more than slightly) unbalanced. It seems fair when you revisit the fact that Vampires are natural predators to humans but it was also very uncomfortably reminiscent of enslavement disguised as “loyalty”. I would definitely love to see an expansion of this world and how the supernatural works within it.
Overall I didn’t LOVE the book because it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was a lot darker and a lot more gruesome than I had gone in thinking (thanks booktok for making me think this was some epic vampire/dark academia/romance). It’s definitely YA horror with a side of romance so if you go in with that knowledge, I think you’ll have a better time. I gave it 2.5 stars mostly because of my disconnect from Kidan’s character. She did have character growth but not enough seen on page for me to change my mind on her. However, if a sequel comes out I’d love to see her continue her journey and I’d likely read it.