Red Magnolia by Lucy Holden

Title: Red Magnolia

Author: Lucy Holden

Series: The Nightgarden Saga (#1)

Publisher: Fehu Press

Expected Publication Date: September 15, 2021

Introduction

Looking for a fresh start, Harper and her brother Connor move into an old, run down mansion that seems to harbor history of curses, not to mention that something weird seems to be going on in the old cemented-up cellar. Nobody seems willing to let this history go, especially not Antoine, a mysterious man who seems hellbent on getting Harper and her brother out of that mansion, no matter what the cost.

Pace

This book, in epub. format, at least, is less than 200 pages, making this a very quick and fast-paced story.

Characters & Relationships

Generally, I liked all of the characters, but I have a few small gripes about Harper's friend, Avery, her interest in Harper's brother, Connor, and Harper's, in my opinion, weird acceptance of it. It seemed like the only reason Avery ever came around was to ogle at Connor, and she hardly actually seemed interested in being Harper's friend just for friendship's sake. Given that Harper just moved to town, it's fair to assume that she would take friendship with anybody, but it's hard to believe that she would just let Avery come around so often when she's obviously just interested in Connor, and I can see that becoming a conflict in later books (which I'm excited to see play out, if that happens.)

Vampire Element

The vampire history and origin story of the vampires in this book is pretty on par with other YA vampire books that I've read. I like that the vampires here have to drink human blood as opposed to going the "vegetarian" route with animal blood or other substitutes. I've grown used to reading about vampires that don't drink human blood because They're Good Vampires and Hate The Curse and Would Never Harm Anybody because that's Not Who They Are so I liked this more classic route.

Twilight Vibes (Slight Spoilers)

There are STRONG Twilight vibes in this novel. The party scene where Antione swoops in to save Harper from a bunch of scary men is stunningly similar to the the scene in Twilight where Edward does the same for Bella.

Even more similar was the way that Antoine made Harper say that he was a vampire instead of saying the words himself, just like Edward.

I'm definitely not saying that these similarities are a bad thing, I just think it's worth mentioning that they are there, so if you love Twilight, this book might be for you.

Conclusion

I liked this book. It was a very quick read and good for scratching a vampire story itch. I think depending on if you enjoyed Twilight might gauge how you feel about this book because as I mentioned, there are a lot of similarities. I shamelessly enjoyed Twilight, so this was a good book for me, and the similarities were welcome. I would like to continue with this saga and will be looking out for more from this author.